Detail english 2015-11-12

600 2015 ¥ 6 ∂
Metal Monocoques – Moving Buildings
Welded like Ships
Frank Kaltenbach
1 Aluminium semi-monocoque: Lord’s cricket
ground media centre, London, 1999;
architects: Future Systems
2 Aluminium monocoque: “Wings” multimedia
sculpture, EXPO 2015, Milan
architects: Studio Libeskind
3 Coated-steel monocoque:
Martin Luther Church, Hainburg, 2011;
architects: Coop Himmelblau
4,5 Sandblasted stainless-steel monocoque:
Porsche Pavilion, Autostadt Wolfsburg, 2012;
architects: Henn Architects
www.detail.de
2
Steel buildings traditionally consist of
standard linear sections that form the structure
together with a non-load-bearing outer
and/or inner envelope.
This division into the skin and bones makes
sense economically and technically, but
from a purely structural point of view, it
is not efficient, because each non-loadbearing
element represents a form of ballast
that demands larger dimensions for
the structural members.
Monocoques, in contrast, are a type of
building in which an internal framework,
consisting of linear members, enters into a
composite structural whole with a loadbearing
skin.
Crustacea instead of skin and bones
This highly efficient lightweight form of construction
has established itself in space travel,
in aircraft and vehicle manufacture and
above all in shipbuilding. The materials
used are the plastics GRP and CFRP or
metals. The analogy to the outer shell of
insects and crustacea can be seen in the
etymology: the Greek word “mónos” meaning
single or alone, and the French word
“coque”, which refers to a shell, such as the
outer casing of a nut or shellfish. In the case
of mobile, flying or floating structures, complexly
formed elements can ultimately be
economical, like the technically optimized,
streamlined “nose” at the bow of a ship,
which results in a smaller consumption of
energy. What advantages do curved forms
have in architecture, though? When building
on land, the challenges posed by freely
shaped surfaces are often self-made: an expression
of the pure design preferences of
individual architects, of the ambition of eager
clients, or a fashionable expression of
the zeitgeist. Nevertheless, people are
moved in a special way by buildings of this
kind – by virtue of their poetry, or because
they radiate a sense of confidence in a future
in which high technology harmonizes
with nature.
Pioneering structure from a shipyard
Jan Kaplicky and Amanda Levete were
among the first architects to be convinced
that buildings meant to radiate a sense of
movement should be constructed like helicopters,
landing modules or ships. Completed
in 1999 by their Future Systems practice,
the media centre at Lord’s cricket
ground in London is the first building in the
world to be implemented as a monocoque
entirely in aluminium and may be seen as a
forerunner of present-day applications of
monocoque ideas in architecture (ill. 1).
The architects themselves speak of a “semimonocoque”,
since the main forces of the
load-bearing structure are borne not by the
skin, but by vertical and horizontal frame
members, and the jointless aluminium casing
is penetrated by two reinforced concrete
lift towers on which the media centre is supported
15 metres above the spectators’
stand of the cricket ground. The internal
doors cut out of the framing are like the watertight
hatches of a ship, with curved corners
at top and bottom. This pioneering
structure was implemented not by construction
firms but by shipbuilders – the British
shipyard Pendennis and the Dutch concern
Centraalstaal.
1
BIM as an innovative factor
Things that are propagated today as the latest
trend in construction under the heading
BIM (building information modelling) have
been practised by shipbuilders for the past