Article 002: Space structures.

Note: This is a translation from this article.

The Expo is a once in a lifetime opportunity to contemplate, within a small area and for a brief period of time, the most innovative techniques and construction processes. We’ll take advantage of it to comment on these techniques, in an attempt to make them comprehensible for the average reader with no specific notions of architecture.

In the themed plaza “Cities on water” we can see a metallic structure covered by another white structure, which is a space structure. The holder of the patent on this space structure is Lanik (www.lanik.com) and it consist of a series of bars and nodes assembled.

A node is shown in this picture:

Each node is a spheric piece with several nut holes located on the point where the bars are to be connected. The bars can access the node from almost any possible direction, the only limitation being the minimum angle that must be kept between two contiguous bars to avoid interference.

The bars are tubular and have two conic elements (cones), each of them is welded at one end of the bar, with an axial orifice to place the bolts.

A specific software package is used to design the space structure and the result data is used by the machine tools that produce the bars and nodes by machining.

Once the bars and nodes are delivered to the construction site, they are assembled by workers. Assembly errors are avoided by an alphanumeric labelling system that marks every piece. It is just like a huge meccano.

When the assembly is finished the structure is elevated to its final position by cranes. The structure that covers this plaza is being lifted in 4 large dettached blocks.

Here is a gallery of pictures of the lifting operation.