Dubai Tensegrity Tower is the pure
exhibition of structure. Calling for an iconic tower devoid of
program the elevator company sponsored competition merely indicated a
desired height of 170 meters. Under economic constraints skyscrapers
are normally used to multiply the footprint in the endless stacking
of floor plates. Not in this tower without specifications on program,
floor area ratio nor skin. By design, Dubai Tensegrity Tower is
poised to become Dubai’s next Eiffel Tower: A tensegrity system
heightening the ingenuity of its own structure.
The static principles behind tensegrity
systems were discovered and exhibited by Russian Constructivist Karl
Ioganson in 1921, but were not received in the West at the time.
Ioganson called his invention spatial construction emphasizing
the novel spatial capacities of the system. His art was meant to
forecast engineering developments in buildings, bridges and machines.
Re-discovered by Kenneth Snelson – a student of Buckminster Fuller
– in the 1950ies in Syracuse, United States, and coined by the
later as tensional-integrity, the system reduces all tensile members
of the static system to a minimum thickness, where they can only act
in tension. The remaining compression members are arranged such that
they never touch each other, giving the impression of a structure
magically suspended in the air.
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