Castles of air? [fruit loopey]

The New Scientist ^ | December | Liz Else

[1bigdictator]

Castles of air? Photo: Zooey Braum

Are we ready to live like modern nomads, with ultra-advanced homes that pack up and travel with us wherever we go? For towns that spring up and vanish when they are no longer needed, or spacecraft that could be any shape you wanted. Axel Thallemer certainly is. His big idea is to build real inflatable buildings that are as far removed from the blow-up jokey plastic world of the 1960s as you can imagine. And at Festo, where he is head of corporate design, they already have eight years of experience in building working prototypes that are among the most advanced in the world - and the only ones based on close observation of nature. Liz Else caught up with Thallemer at Festo's headquarters

You are taking inflatable buildings very seriously. Why?

I want to see membrane plus air as the sixth construction material. We have stone, leather, glass, metal and wood. Why not air?

You face a hard job convincing people to change. Where would you start?

Where you have cosmopolitan areas and you have very different cultures living close together in spaces like New York, San Francisco, maybe Chicago, or Berlin. I'm not quite so sure about Paris, but definitely Milan. Barcelona is imaginable but not Madrid - it would be impossible there. And in certain areas of London, definitely. They are very advanced and very much more open-minded.

Why should people start getting ready now to take inflatable technology seriously?

There are many reasons why. First, in the past we did not have the polymers and other materials. We literally could not have created the membranes for these structures, they require such heavy-duty computing power. Plus the computing side of this design and fabrication was also impossible, even 20 or 30 years ago. For example, you need masses of very specialised CADCAM software and finite element analysis. Just cutting the fabric is a very difficult problem, going from 3D to 2D.

There's also Festo's expertise in pneumatics, isn't there?

Yes. This has enabled us to build fluidic muscles based on nature. The way a spider leaps, the flapping of a bird's wing, the blink of an eye, all are achieved by muscles. Sometimes they pull directly, and at other times levering with tendons and joints. They are essential for keeping our buildings up. Like real biceps, they bunch up.

What have you built?

There have been 18 projects. Funnbrella, for example, was finished last year. It is taken from the words "funnel" and "umbrella". It is probably the largest funnel umbrella in the world that rests on just one central support. The top of it looks like a mushroom and it can withstand a full load of snow resting asymmetrically on half of the umbrella surface - and near-hurricane strength winds. Another of my babies is Airtecture, which is basically an exhibition hall 6 metres tall. It's very Gothic to look at, especially with the 40 Y-shaped columns bared on the Y-shaped joints of dragonfly wings. It's amazingly light considering how "heavy" it looks - only about 6 tonnes, and you can store it in an international container only 12 metres long. I am also very fond of the Airquarium, which was based on the way a raindrop splashes and has a torus filled with water at its base. It is practically transparent, and feels very light inside.

How have local people reacted to your buildings?

Well, what I've heard is that the people living in the vicinity are having a big problem when they are on their balconies or looking out from their living rooms at the Funnbrella. This is a rural area. It looks like a UFO has landed. They don't get it. The problem when you look at the architecture here is there really is nothing worth mentioning.

You mean there are just little modular boxes that you find anywhere, anytime?

Yes. It's all very socialistic.

You have mentioned nature a lot. How do you use it for inspiration? Was it right in front of you?

Yes. It didn't come from making literature studies or frenetically visiting libraries in order to get input. It doesn't work that way. I think that the ideas process has to be volatile and free, and for that flowing process you have to get up and walk around and just look.

Are the buildings "green" in any way?

Yes. First of all, if there is a fire, you have nothing but a mixture of water and vinegar vapour emerging. No toxic fumes. Whereas conventional buildings can be quite a mess from the gases released. And there are no volatile organic compounds released by the building itself.

You say they are self-cleaning. Are they self-maintaining too?

Not everything is, but the computer system that we have installed does contain normal emergencies. With larger holes or defects, the computer will tell you more or less what is going on. It will solve the smaller problems, and in that sense it is self-healing.

How cheap would an inflatable house be? What would an average house of three bedrooms cost?

A house of, say, 500 square metres would be about £150,000. It is not more expensive than a conventional house, but not a lot less.

Could they become apartment blocks? Would they be cheaper if they took up less land?

You need much more ground space with those buildings because they are rather solid rather than cubicles that can be arranged in a modular way. It is technically feasible to build apartments, but I don't picture it that way. I would rather do smaller units where up to two families would share one building, but not stacking in five or four storeys.

Are you keen to live in one yourself?

I would like to make something for myself to live in which is mobile, because I truly believe that all human beings are nomads. I don't think we are cave dwellers. Personally, I don't think that I am clinging to one specific location or area. I find it very interesting to have housing which is collapsible and reusable somewhere else in a very quick way. Not like the trailers in the US. I mean structures which can be packed away and stored in a very small volume and then re-employed at a new location. When there is a new interesting job to be done then you move somewhere else with your housing.

But most people live in a static way these days. It suits our economic and political system. Do they see you as a revolutionary?

Usually what I hear from government bodies in talks about the future and incentives to change things is that they say that what I want to do is revolutionary. They would rather have people not thinking about their situation, who are dull and not interacting proactively with the system.

How do you see yourself? As a revolutionary? An architect? An inventor?

I hate being called an inventor. I prefer innovator. It doesn't fall into a particular camp, it's more holistic. The funny thing is that I used to be more conventional but I have become more unconventional and questioning over time.

How did you get on at Porsche?

I left only after they had a design freeze. I was forced to do things that I would never have endorsed or done from my professional point of view - meaning I don't think that a Boxster or a Carerra looks like a real Porsche or what a real Porsche should look like either now or in the future. For me, the Model 964 that was produced until December 1992 was the last real one I had. After that I never drove one.

What do your students make of what you are doing now?

They are absolutely positive. Young people are much more positively challenged by all this. The younger ones are much more emphatic. We do courses and seminars in different universities, and they prefer to go for the future and risk not being realistic rather than cling to the past. Which is good.

But there are many towns where there is nothing at all that is good to look at. Is anyone interested in inflatable public buildings?

You know what the building regulations are? They are very tough on public safety even though our buildings meet their criteria many times over. And in every case they always fear vandalism. I can't really follow their thinking at all. What is accepted in this society, what people cherish they will hold in place and in a steady shape, so for me when violence occurs it is a response. But this is not the fault of the construction material, it's rather to do with the shortcomings of the system that is causing the overall behaviour. I must not build buildings that can withstand vandals. I would rather look for a society in a social climate which hinders people showing that kind of behaviour.

What is the most novel application for inflatable technology so far?

For spacecraft.

But wouldn't they just burn up or blow up or something?

No. Of course, the membrane would have to be made up from some sort of ceramic fibre. But just think: with air inside a membrane they could be any conceivable shape. And the water that we use to help hold the whole structure in shape is a very good radiation shield. Constance Adams from NASA was talking about space stations at a conference earlier this year and at the end of the session I approached her and asked her whether she thought that in the near future we are going to see inflatables in space. Her guess was that within the next 20 years she expects to see something inflatable manned in space.

[stanz]

A new answer to hunter-gathering?

[PAR35]

with ultra-advanced homes that pack up and travel with us wherever we go? For towns that spring up and vanish when they are no longer needed

They don't have trailer parks in England? How did Clinton get a date when he was at Oxford?

Somehow, I don't think these things will sell in Tornado Alley.