Glass portal with load-carrying beams

Glass can be used structurally for primary load-carrying elements of a skin system to provide enhanced transparency and elegance. This approach, however, requires paying special attention to structural design of the glass itself, applying redundancy concepts to the design and providing special details. We offer fully signed and sealed structural calculation packages and detailed drawings of elements such as glass beams, glass columns and glass shear-stiffening elements. Our comprehensive services also include preparing specifications and performing construction administration activities for structural glass elements.

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Urban Space Project, New York
Courtesy Natalie Jeremijenko

Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) is a copolymer plastic of unmatched transparency and durability, making it one of the most innovative skin materials available. Able to span great distances, ETFE foil cladding systems can be dynamic and sculptural, capable of quickly adjusting shading, thermal, and aesthetic characteristics in response to programs or climatic changes. ETFE systems can benefit designs, budgets, and building performance – but only if their specific attributes are considered early in the design process. Our experts, experienced in concept evaluation and integration of ETFE systems in building skins, can provide this essential expertise to your project team.

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Chelsea Arts Gallery, New York
Courtesy studioMDA

Fabric systems rely on pretension along curves to hold their shape and avoid destructive wrinkling and flapping. Our design professionals use numerical 3-D form-finding tools to determine appropriate shapes for skins of PTFE, PVC, ePFTE and other fabric-based tensioned surfaces. We optimize shapes, stresses, and deflections under loading, verify slopes to check drainage and avoid ponding, and determine support reactions at integrated cables, steel arches and supporting masts and struts. Whether covering a stadium, a courtyard or an exterior, fabric membranes are best determined and detailed within the overall design process when form-finding is most able to suit architectural aesthetics and adjacent main structural member reaction support limitations.

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Light-emitting diodes in an ETFE cushion

Building skins that communicate with their environment are logical in today’s information and digital age. Their uses can be playful, dramatic or informative: stadiums showing team colors and walls displaying moving images. Some systems maintain skin optical transparency while others can potentially improve building performance or generate energy. As the trend moves from layered technologies to integrated lighting and digital systems within thin skins or single systems, these technologies will require specialty engineering and coordination, and possibly micro-engineering and material science expertise in the future. Our skin experts keep in the forefront of these advancements and help bring cutting-edge design concepts and interactive objectives to reality.

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