A black fabric tensile model suspended on cables above a white base, with a small red figure for scale.

Multilayered Tensegrity

Greg Lynn Studio, University of Applied Arts Vienna

A design tool that matches simulated tensile behaviour to physical models, used to propose a multi-storey tensegrity stadium — checked against the model in AR.

Year
2018
Type
Research
Role
Author
Location
Vienna, AT

This project develops a design tool that synchronises tensile behaviour in a digital model with its physical counterpart. The matching is done by observing how grid-patterned physical tensile models deflect, and simulating that deflection with Kangaroo and Karamba. Being able to predict the behaviour makes form-finding for tensegrity structures much easier.

With the tool I proposed a multilayered tensegrity structure for a stadium — a complex programme on several floors carried by tensegrity. The structure minimises the visual sense of gravity and maximises transparency. The physical model can then be checked in augmented reality, built in Unity, to see how closely the digital and physical tensile structures match.

Three panels: a 3D scan mapped onto a grid, a cable-net structural optimisation, and a cladding study coloured by transparency.
01 Digitalising physical behaviour — scan and mapping, cable-net optimisation, cladding for energy.
A physical model beside a colourful finite-element simulation of the net.
02 Structural realisation — model and net-system FEA.
Section through the stadium: tensile roof layers above stands and floors.
03 Section.
A tablet showing the AR overlay — coloured cable layers on the physical model — with toggles for layers and transparency.
04 AR overlay comparing digital and physical tensile structures.