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Fabric provides shade at Arizona zoo
September 1st, 2011
An Arizona zoo embraces the landscape; a fabric shade structure is key to its reinvigorated success At Tucson’s Reid Park Zoo, the entryway was redeveloped in 2003 to enhance facilities, demonstrate “green” building considerations and create a more significant identity for the zoo. The remodeled facilities building—arcing in plan from east to west—houses a gift […]
Shade structure in the Caribbean
September 1st, 2011
Taking full advantage of natural trade winds, a responsive shade system improves the micro climate of this streetscape on Grand Cayman Island With a planning and design team that reads like a who’s who of the planning movement called New Urbanism, the design of Camana Bay Town Centre on the western end of Grand Cayman […]
Stella + Calatrava: The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain in Germany
September 1st, 2011
By Mason Riddle What happens when a near legendary American artist and an acclaimed Spanish engineer-architect decide to play nicely in an iconic modernist art museum in Germany? “Stella & Calatrava: The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain,” a bold, stylistically unconventional mixed media work installed in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie designed by Mies Van der Rohe. Part painting, […]
ETFE systems
September 1st, 2011
ETFE moves mainstream By Edward M Peck, AIA, LEED AP What is ETFE? ETFE was pioneered by DuPont more than 40 years prior to its architectural debut in Europe in the early 1980s. DuPont developed the fluorocarbon-based polymer to have high corrosion and chemical resistance, structural strength with low propagation of tear and integrity over […]
High fiber chair
August 8th, 2011
New technologies and material innovations “have always been the starting point for new objects and typologies in design,” says German product designer Werner Aisslinger, whose Hemp Chair recently debuted at Material Vision 2011, a trade exhibition for product development, design and architecture. Aisslinger combined renewable raw materials (hemp and kenaf fiber) and the water-based thermoset […]
They must be doing something right!
August 4th, 2011
In business for 130 years, New Jersey-based Hudson Awning & Sign Co. is celebrating its long and varied history this year. Interesting to note: awnings were not their first business; it was sails for tall ships that launched the firm. Hudson Awning & Sign Co. is a long-time member of IFAI, publisher of Fabric Architecture […]
Opening soon…
July 20th, 2011
The largest composite building in the world sees first panels put in place on the new façade of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam As reported in Fabric Architecture, July 2010, the museum façade redesign by Benthem Crouwel Architects consists of a single surface of Teijin Twaron and Toho Tenax fiber composite panels covering an area […]
“Safe landing†update
July 15th, 2011
Our lead news story in the May/June 2010 issue, by contributing editor Mark Zeh, introduced a dynamic design of a helicopter landing pad for the University Clinic of Aachen, Germany. Since then, we’ve learned that the landing pad, designed by German architects OX2architekten, has been constructed and is in active use. A 22-hour time-lapse video […]
Mobilizarte: Mobile art pavilion
July 1st, 2011
Riding on a cloud, promoting Brazil and art By Mason Riddle In reality, art and sports are not such odd bedfellows. And Mobilizarte proves it. The 500m2 mobile art pavilion will tour Brazil for four years beginning in the summer of 2012, making stops at the 2014 FIFA World Cup match sites, and concluding it […]
Interactive environment is up in the air
July 1st, 2011
Rachely Rotem Studio and Phu Hoang Office together have won the SHIFTboston Barge 2011 competition to design an interactive environment on a barge in Boston’s Fort Point Channel. Entitled “Lighter than Air”, the winning design is comprised of 3-D camouflage netting held up by helium-filled weather balloons to transform the barge into a “pop-up” public […]