I’m starting to worry that I’m turning into an ostrich.

I’m territorial and ill-tempered. I’m fighting a strange desire to eat shiny objects. And when I get scared, I find myself hiding my face as though not seeing whatever is scaring me will make it go away. And this may or may not be related: I’m developing a strong aversion to light bulbs.

Image courtesy http://www.ostrichheadinsand.com/

A company called Nth Degree Tech may be able to help me out with that last problem. They’re seeking to replace light bulbs with their first commercial product, a two foot by four foot LED light sheet that’s flat and looks like a glowing piece of paper, which they plan to ship to customers for evaluation by the end of the year (Bullis). This is an exciting development, since it would allow lighting designers to get freaky with curved or unusually shaped light-emitting surfaces – at a price point comparable to the current cost of fluorescent light bulbs and fixtures.

Image courtesy Nth Degree Tech

To make their snazzy new lighting material, Nth Degree workers carve up “a wafer of gallium nitride to produce millions of tiny LEDs—one four-inch wafer yields about eight million of them. The LEDs are then mixed with resin and binders, and a standard screen printer is used to deposit the resulting ‘ink’ over a large surface” (Bullis).  They toss down a layer of silver ink for the back electrical contact, add a layer of phosphors that alter the color of the light emitted by the LEDs from blue to various shades of white, and then they slap on an insulating layer that prevents those pesky short circuits that can burn out the LEDs.

The front electrical contact is made with an ink containing invisibly small metal wires, which makes it transparent and allows light through the layer.  The transparent electrical contact ALONE could be the subject of an entire article, since it’s unspeakably awesome. Its awesomeness derives from the fact that it may eventually replace the brittle and often testy indium tin oxide (ITO) sheets that have been used in touch screens and electroluminescent assemblies in the past. ITO can be expensive, it can’t be printed and it’s not at all flexible – it deserves to be made redundant.

Image courtesy Nth Degree Tech

While printing with inks that are comprised of “tiny working LEDs produces much brighter light than depositing powders or thin films of electroluminescent material,” Nth Degree’s light sheets don’t match the best LEDs available today, which emit over 200 Lumens per watt.  The sheets are better than incandescent lights in terms of efficiency, emitting 20 lumens per watt, but they’re not as good as fluorescent lights just yet, which emit 80 lumens per watt (Bullis).

The new design won’t require heat sinks the way current conventional LEDs do because the lights are distributed evenly and in a thin layer, meaning that they do not get hot.  The downside is that the tiny LEDs need a pretty robust power source and as a result, Nth Degree’s first light fixture will be two inches thick despite the fact that the light-emitting surface is thin and flexible (Bullis).  I’m not letting that ruffle my feathers, however, since I’m betting that the whole assembly will get thinner over time.

WU XING:

Filed under FIRE because it lights up!

Cited:

Bullis, Kevin. “Lighting Sheets Made of Tiny LEDs” Technology Review Online. 10/28/11. Accessed 02/24/12. URL.

Sometimes the beginning of the year is a little bit … well … boring. Everyone is working out at the gym and eating healthy green foods, and even though the sun still sets at an ungodly hour, all the festive holiday parties are over.  This admirably disciplined January attitude is great for working off all the pfeffernüsse you shoved in your face and chased with rum-laced egg nog at your Aunt Betty’s house in December, but if you’re not careful all of this new-found rigidity and focus could negatively affect your work.  So if you’re looking to spice up your latest facade design and hey – maybe even your life in general this month, then take a gander at this intriguing “multi-layer, polymeric reflective film that reflects 95%+ of visible light” and that can be used to create snazzy chrome-like, multicolored, and metallic effects in plastics (Source: Inventables.com).

Image courtesy UT Materials Lab & 3M

Radiant light film contains no metal whatsoever, so it’s non-corroding, thermally stable, non-conductive, and won’t produce electro-magnetic interference; it’s a well-mannered material that manages to create a striking effect with a minimum of fuss.  Taking a cue from butterfly wings, the colors in the film are created NOT through the use of pigments but rather through a series of microscopic ridges spaced a few hundred nanometers apart. Variations in the spacing of the ridges produce a range of colors (blue to magenta to gold) though the reflection and interference of different wavelengths of light, and as a result the material appears to change hue as you adjust your viewing angle.

Radiant light film is nothing if not versatile: it can be “embossed, die cut, sheet slit, precision cut, surface treated, dyed, coated to be heat sealed, coated with adhesive, printed and extruded into plastics. It can be combined with suitable color substrates to produce various vibrant colors in both reflection and transmission” (Inventables.com).  Hell – you can even turn the stuff into yarn and knit it into a sweater if you’re so inclined, according to manufacturer, 3M.

UN Studio’s La Defense, Almere

Technology: 3M Radiant Colour/Light Film.
Using radiant colour film to create interference colour.

So far the film has found applications in home décor, packaging, automotive trim and accents, computers, mobile phones and advertising media, and inspired by UN Studio, I think we should wrap some buildings with it. And then let’s go have some cookies because we all knew I’d never make it to March let alone 2013 on this ridiculous salad-filled healthy diet and I’m sore from doing pushups.

WU XING

I have filed Radiant Light film under Water and Wood. It’s flexible, reflective, and it interviews well.

Get Radiant Light Film from Inventables.

Things are heavy right now, man. People are fighting wars, Wall Street is occupied, a large percentage of the workforce can’t find jobs, airport security procedures intensify in complexity by the minute, the rainforest is shrinking as I type … and that’s just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. So if you’re already feeling like Atlas with the weight of the world on your shoulders, you’ll be glad to find out that scientists recently invented a material so lightweight it makes styrofoam seem as heavy as a lead ingot.

In fact, “with a density of just 0.9 mg/cm3 the material is around 100 times lighter than Styrofoam and lighter than … ‘multiwalled carbon nanotube (MCNT) aerogel’ – also dubbed ‘frozen smoke’ – with a density of 4 mg/cm3” (Quick). Learn more about aerogels here.

Researchers at UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and Caltech created an “ultralight metallic microlattice,” which, due to its nanoscale structural configuration vaguely reminiscent of the Eiffel tower, which consists 99.9% of air.  The scientists claim that it is the lightest material on earth.  To make the material, researchers fabricated “a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair” (Netburn). It’s so unbelievably light that the researchers made a version out of nickel, placed it on top of a dandelion and … nothing happened; check it – the stalk didn’t even bend:

Photo: Ultralight metallic microlattice — which is 99.9% air — is so light that it can sit atop dandelion fluff without damaging it. Credit: Dan Little / HRL Laboratories

So how, aside from dandelion decoration, might we use an ultralight metallic microlattice?  The new material demonstrates impressive strength and energy absorption, with the ability to recover from compression exceeding 50% strain.  The small wall thickness-to-diameter ratio of the material allows the individual tubes to remain flexible and absorb energy (Quick). The microlattice demonstrates potential for awesomeness across a wide range of applications. It could be used for catalyst supports, acoustic dampening, as impact protection, vibration dampening, in the aerospace industry, possibly in airplanes to save weight and corresponding jet fuel, bike helmets, or maybe even battery electrodes.

I’d like to know if the manufacturing process is scalable, if it’s toxic in any way, what the cost is to make the material, and if its performance decays over time.  But it’s exciting to think about the possibilities – and to imagine little ultralight metallic microlattice samples floating delicately to earth like so many swan feathers floating on the breeze.

WU XING:

The lightest material on earth has been filed … in earth (and metal).

Cited:

Netburn, Deborah. “Scientists Invent Lightest Material on Earth. What Now?” Los Angeles Times online. 11/17/11. Accessed 11/21/11.  URL.

Quick, Darren. “Newly Developed Metallic ‘Microlattice’ Material is World’s Lightest.” Gizmag.com. 11/17/11. Accessed 11/21/11.  URL.

Special thanks to @BBQSnob for the tip.

Yesterday I bent over in the attempt to tie the absurdly bright purple shoe laces on my almost offensively bright purple sneakers and made a startling discovery: I’m not as flexible as I used to be.  In fact, the overwhelming tightness of my hamstrings makes your standard British upper lip look positively floppy; and as I fired up my smartphone to schedule some emergency yoga I was reminded that I had yet to share an amazing new fully stretchable OLED display recently developed at the University of California, Los Angeles, a place where they know a thing or two about screens.

OLEDs or Organic Light-Emitting Diodes are great technology for screens primarily because they work without a backlight and can display deep black levels for high contrast.  OLED displays can be manufactured thinner and lighter than liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and “in low ambient light conditions such as dark rooms an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD, whether the LCD uses either cold cathode fluorescent lamps or the more recently developed LED backlight. Due to their low thermal conductivity, they typically emit less light per area than inorganic LEDs” (Source: Wikipedia). What it all boils down to is that OLEDs are the bees knees. FACT.

Image courtesy wired.com

Once researchers saw how thin they could make OLEDs it was only a matter of time before people starting thinking about how to make them flexible. Stretchable electronics open up a world where video displays get rolled up and stuffed in your pocket, electronic sheets drape like cloth, electronics grow and shrink on command, and the mighty condor gets taken off the endangered species list.

Early attempts at stretchable electronics resulted in prototypes that connected rigid LEDs with stretchable material and others that bent but couldn’t stretch. The challenge researchers faced was how to ensure that the electrode could maintain connectivity while being deformed since many conductive materials can’t stretch nearly as far as one might like.  Enter the humble yet versatile carbon nanotube: it’s stretchable, conductive, appears transparent in thin layers, and it usually picks up the check after lunch dates.

The fly in the nanotube ointment, so to speak, is the fact that carbon nanotubes must be attached to a surface; the attachment can be tricky to pull off since when applied to a plastic backing nanotubes have a tendency to slide off or even slide past each other when the backing is stretched. To evict said proverbial fly from said proverbial ointment, the UCLA researchers created a carbon nanotube and polymer electrode layered on a stretchable, light-emitting plastic.

The researchers “coated carbon nanotubes onto a glass backing and added a liquid polymer that becomes solid yet stretchable when exposed to ultraviolet light. The polymer diffuses throughout the carbon nanotube network and dries to a flexible plastic that completely surrounds the network rather than just resting alongside it. Peeling the polymer-and-carbon-nanotube mix off of the glass yields a smooth, stretchable, transparent electrode” (Grifantini).  I imagine that the carbon nanotubes embedded in the plastic stretch at roughly the same rate, and that the plastic keeps to itself mostly and doesn’t interfere with the ability of the nanotubes to conduct electricity.

Image courtesy pcworld.com

The team sandwiched two layers of carbon nanotube electrode around another plastic that emits light when current runs through it.  Researchers obtained a laminator from a local office supply store to press the layered device together so that it could be handled safely in the presence of electric current.  As an aside, we did the same thing when we screen printed an electroluminescent lamp in Switzerland this summer and were hoping to not get electroshocked by the circuits. (More on that soon).  In contrast to our electroluminescent display, the flexible OLED created by the UCLA team can be stretched by as much as 45 percent while emitting a colored light.

Their prototype is a two-centimeter square that emits a one-centimeter square brilliant sky-blue light that stretches like silly putty until it loses conductivity due to being stretched too far or too many times (Grifantini).  The researchers also made a prototype using silver nano wires (which are more conductive than nanotubes) that exhibits similar stretching properties but is even more conductive.  Their layered approach is a great idea, not least because it’s easy to imagine how the process could be scaled up for production.  Now if only those scientists could help me with my hamstrings….

WU XING:

I have filed stretchable OLEDs under Water, Wood and Fire because they’re flexible, stretchy, and they light up.

Cited:

Grifantini, Kristina. “The First Fully Stretchable OLED.” Techreview.com 08/26/11. Accessed 10/05/11. URL.

Watch video: Stretchable OLED – Tech Review

Glass is the best. Glass is the friend who drives you to the airport without complaining, who helps you move your fourteen-ton couch in exchange for beer, who tells you that you’ll regret the neon green mohawk when you look back at your wedding photos. Glass goes the extra mile. Without glass we’d either live and work in rooms devoid of daylight or we’d punch holes in the walls and our homes and offices would be full of weather, confused seagulls, and the occasional ambitious praying mantis.  It would be chaos.

Now imagine if glass could go one better: if glass could get you tickets to the Superbowl, or if it let you drive its Bugatti. In my humble opinion, that day has dawned.

Image courtesy helixated.com

A group of South Korean scientists have developed new glass that “becomes more or less transparent according to the light outside, darkening to save air conditioning bills on hot days, and letting in warmth on cold days to reduce heating costs. But unlike other designs, it does so automatically, without users having to use a control to dim or brighten the effect” (Schiller).  At this point, if you’re a devoted reader of ARCHITERIALS, you’re probably thinking, “but wait wasn’t there that glass that changes color and then that other really cool irridescent glass film? Hasn’t this been DONE??”

Well …. yes.

BUT there are drawbacks to many of the existing varieties of smart glass (electrochromic glass, for instance, or suspended particle displays): “many are expensive, degrade after relatively short periods, or present environmental problems during manufacturing processes” (Schiller).  So if you’re looking for a way to reduce heating and cooling bills but don’t want to degrade the environment by more than the minimum possible, then theoretically this new smart glass might work for you.

The researchers assert that their layered assembly of polymer, counterions, and methanol creates a low-cost, stable window embettered by an ability to switch automatically from transparent to opaque in a matter of seconds (Schiller).  I assume that this is based on the amount of light that hits the glass. In case you are not familiar (I wasn’t): counterions exhibit a charge opposite to the substance with which they are associated.

Image courtesy Chang Hwan Lee, Ho Sun Lim, Jooyong Kim†, and Jeong Ho Cho

So here’s how I understand this: the researchers created an environment where nanocrystalline surface structures either scattered the incident light (producing an opaque effect) or dissolved away, allowing light to travel through the glass.  The assembly is less toxic to produce than other chemical-intensive composites, and rather than requiring an electric current to achieve a transition from opaque to transparent, the material can make the change on its own. Magnificent.

WU XING:

I have filed smart glass under WATER because it makes sense.

Cited:

Schiller, Ben. “Smart Glass Becomes More Or Less Transparent Depending On The Weather.” Fastcompany.com 10/3/11. Accessed 10/4/11. URL.

“Counterion-Induced Reversibly Switchable Transparency in Smart Windows.”  Chang Hwan Lee, Ho Sun Lim, Jooyong Kim and ,Jeong Ho Cho. ACS Nano 2011 5 (9), 7397-7403. URL.

VergeLabs, an architecture and design practice based in the United Arab Emirates founded as a partnership between Ginger Krieg Dosier and Michael Dosier, brought some of that magic to concrete with their development of Glowcrete.

Image courtesy Vergelabs

The researchers used phosphorescent pigment in two ways to produce glowing concrete: they added the pigment to expansion cement, the pigment, when distributed unevenly, left a glowing trail that served as a record of the mixing process; and they also added the phosphorescent pigment to the concrete as aggregate. The even distribution of pigment in the second case creates a uniform distribution of light emission.

In each case, as the surface of the concrete weathers and erodes, new phosphorescent aggregate is exposed, which extends the lifespan of the luminescence (Source: Vergelabs).  I’d like to learn more about the phosphorescent pigment the researchers used – I’m not sure how long it lasts or whether it’s toxic (although I’d imagine the answers to those questions are: not very and yes).  That being acknowledged, I can so clearly imagine this material at the bottom of a swimming pool or fountain, or even on the underside of an unfinished concrete slab – pure magic.

WU XING:

I have filed glowcrete under Earth (concrete) and Fire (glowiness!)

Cited:

Dosier, Ginger Kreig and Michael. “Glowcrete.” Vergelabs Research in Architecture. 05/30/06. Accessed 06/03/11. URL.

Image courtesy my.firefighternation.com

Manuel Kretzer sent me a description of the project, Material Animation, excerpts from which I’ll share here:

Material Animation is a kinetic light installation made from laser cut electro-luminescent (EL) foils which senses location, number and velocity of human occupants and responds through a multitude of wireless networked components to encourage further interaction with the environment.  It merges advanced techniques in parametric design, digital fabrication, physical computing, electronics and material science with theories and computational approaches to machine intelligence and sets them into a real world context.

The experiment is situated in three rooms of an idle emergency bunker below ETH Zürich’s Science City campus. Each room reflects a different theme and approach to physically animate the distinctive material properties at an architectural scale. Electroluminescent foils are extremely thin, flexible and lightweight screens which emit a homogeneous cold light across their surface without the need for additional infrastructure.

So to recap: you enter an unused emergency bunker (danger! – I told you not to take off your helmet!!) and then wind your way through a series of darkened rooms, each of which contains objects that are not alive, but which can sense your presence and respond.  Each room is equipped with one Microsoft Kinect Sensor, which is usually used to control the Xbox 360 console using gestures and spoken commands. The device features an RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone, which provide full-body 3D motion, capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities.

The behavior of the elements in each room depends on the number of people present in each room, their location, movement and speed, and if more than two people are in the same room, also the area of space they occupy. The elements encourage people to interact with the installation, allowing the system to collect real-time feedback. Not only that, but the various installations are connected into a network, so that something going on in one room can trigger activity in another.

Vapor

Vapor creates a fluid space consisting of eight floating elements that are expanding and contracting according to location and amount of users. The main focus was to emphasize the lightness of the material and maximize the three dimensional form which is created through the way that two electroluminescent A4 sheets are cut and combined. Generative design processes and the use of parametric software led to an oval shape that allows top and bottom part to reveal and conceal independently from each other. Each element is controlled and animated by two servo-driven pulleys, which are mounted to the back wall of the room. The servos allow for the expansion and contraction of the top and bottom layer and simultaneously raise the element in space. The speed of movement and frequency of illumination are determined by a Java programmed behavior and the real time input of the sensor system, which are then tuned to the overall performance of the other spaces.

Open Wires

Open Wires aims to create an environment based on lighted, ephemeral and unpredictable three-dimensional shapes.  The system consists of 31 EL strips that revolve and flicker in high speed. The strips are attached to the ceiling at two different heights. The first level is overhead, acting as a collective cloud system. The second position is lower and invites the visitors to touch and distort the ray trace. Each element mainly consists of an electroluminescent foil, a square-shaped rotary contact and a DC motor. The motor is fixed to the acrylic structure of the system. Through a metal axis, the rotary contact and the EL foil are attached to the motor. Two fixed open wires power the foil through the rotary contact.  The visual impact of Open Wires is affected by both the revolving speed of the motors and the on/off state of the EL strips. The combination of these two factors forms the unpredictable shapes in space.

Insomnia

Insomnia focuses on the flexibility, thinness and homogeneous illumination of the material. These properties are used to back light two separated optical animations based on moiré patterns. This effect appears when two transparent layers containing coherent opaque patterns are overlapped and moved against each other. Each structure consists of an EL layer, printed black and white pictures and a striped pattern, which slides horizontally. The project was approached from three sides. First the flexibility and pliability of the material was explored. Second the optical illusion resulting from the moiré effect and how it tricks and stimulates human perception was analyzed and reproduced. Third a structural and mechanical system was developed that would incorporate and unify the various layers.

Disturbance

Disturbance generates a vividly vibrating structure that appears and disappears and invites the users to pass through and linger among its suspended tentacles. The piece consists of 64 thin electroluminescent strips, which are evenly spread along a circular disk that is fixed to the ceiling of the space. While lit, they form a cylindrical surface that blurs and shivers when it’s being hit by the fast spinning propeller that sits in the center of the disk. Depending on the proximity and location of approaching people light patterns gradually appear and disappear along the round surface. As with the other installations, the piece is networked and adopts its behavior to situations happening in the different rooms.

The project is a case study in the possibilities of Electroluminescence, an optical phenomenon in which light is emitted by a material in response to a strong electric field.  Material Animation used EL foils, which are extremely flexible, lightweight, thin screens that can be described as:

flat light bulb sandwiches consisting of layers of conductive and non-conductive plastic and a layer of phosphor. Light is produced when an electric current is passed through a semiconductor with tiny holes. As the excited electrons pass over these holes, they release their energy as photons, which result in a steady glow of the material.  Compared to other lighting technologies electroluminescent lights require very little alternating current but a relatively high voltage (between 60 and 600 volts).  In contrast to neon lamps, filament lamps or LEDs, electroluminescent light is non-directional, so the brightness of the surface appears consistent from any viewing angle. The emitted light is perfectly homogeneous and visible from a great distance. Because EL sheets are self-contained, there is no further infrastructure needed for installation.

WU XING:

I have filed Material Animation under Fire because of the EL components and all the electronics involved in this fascinating project. Special thanks to Manuel Kretzer for all the info!

Cited:

Kretzer, Manuel. “Material Animation.” CAAD ETH 2011. (Text Excerpts and Images unless noted otherwise).

Image courtesy thenewyorkgreenadvocate.blogspot.com

The Lumenatrix Backlighting System by Duo-Guard aims to remedy at least the energy consumption issue by providing an LED-based architectural lighting system that allows designers to create free standing, smoothly illuminated architectural elements such as walls and ceilings without hot spots.

The Lumenatrix system is comprised of tiles (squares, hexagons, octagons, or rounds that can be custom-fabricated in 2″-12″ depths) supplied individually or in prearranged configurations.  The tiles can be recessed, surface, or pendant mounted, and they’re capable of transmitting daylight, which reduces the cost of a glowing wall during daylight hours.  The tiles are arranged in panels that consist of a structural power rail grid system that provides low voltage electricity to the LEDs.  The lights can slide on the rails to produce specific lighting effects.

Image courtesy thenewyorkgreenadvocate.blogspot.com

Heat sinks allow the system to run at lower temperatures, which theoretically increases the lifespan of the LED bulbs, and with one LED per square foot of illuminated surface, the power consumption of the system can be as low as 1-3 watts per square foot.

Check out the following video produced by Duo-Guard for Greenbuild last year to learn more about the system!

WU XING:

I have filed Lumenatrix Backlighting system under Fire, since it involves lighting.

Cited:

Lumenatrix Site

Scientists have been working with carbon nanotubes (essentially, rolled up sheets of graphene) to encourage solar cells to convert more of the sun’s energy to electricity.  Theoretically, nanotubes “gather more electrons that are kicked up from the surface of a PV cell, allowing a greater number of electrons to produce a current” (Boyle).  More electrons means more power, so it’s a decent line of research to pursue.

image courtesy roselawgroup.com

In practice, however, using carbon nanotubes in solar cells has proved more complicated than one might like for two reasons: “first, the making of carbon nanotubes generally produces a mix of two types, some of which act as semiconductors (sometimes allowing an electric current to flow, sometimes not) or metals (which act like wires, allowing current to flow easily). The new research, for the first time, showed that the effects of these two types tend to be different, because the semiconducting nanotubes can enhance the performance of solar cells, but the metallic ones have the opposite effect. Second, nanotubes tend to clump together, which reduces their effectiveness” (Chandler). Understanding the differences between the two types of nanotubes could be useful for designing more efficient nanoscale batteries, piezoelectrics or other power-related materials.

Image credit Matt Klug, Biomolecular Materials Group

Graduate students Xiangnan Dang and Hyunjung Yi, MIT professor Angela Belcher and colleagues turned to biology for a solution to these nanochallenges, employing a genetically engineered version of a virus called M13, prone to attacking and infecting bacteria.  M13 can arrange and order nanotubes on a surface.  The virus has peptides that bind to the nanotubes, allowing them to separate the tubes so they can’t short out the circuits, and it also prevents clumping. “Each virus can grip about five to 10 nanotubes each, using roughly 300 of the protein molecules. The viruses were also genetically engineered to produce a layer of titanium dioxide, which happens to be the key ingredient in Grätzel cells, a.k.a. dye-sensitized solar cells… This close contact between TiO2 nanoparticles helps transport the electrons more efficiently” (Boyle).

Interestingly, the viruses also make the nanotubes water-soluble, which could lower manufacturing costs by facilitating the incorporation of nanotubes into solar cells at room temperature.  The virus-built structures enhanced the solar cells’ power conversion efficiency to 10.6 percent from 8 percent. That’s about a one-third improvement, using a viral system that makes up just 0.1 percent of the cells’ weight (Boyle). A little help from biology goes a long way.

WU XING:

I have filed this under fire, because the main idea relates to energy.

Cited:

Boyle, Rebecca. “MIT Researchers use Viruses to Build More Efficient Solar Panels.” Popsci.com 04/25/11. Accessed 04/26/11. URL.

Chandler, David L. “Solar Power Goes Viral.” MIT News Office. 04/25/11. Accessed 04/26/11. URL.

I bring this up because I’m working on a project right now where a glowing ceiling is the goal. It’s a small, house-sized commercial structure whose organization responds to a grid that extends across an enormous site. Neighboring buildings consist of utterly huge cultural institutions, so this grid, which is expressed by cuts in the concrete paving and in the organization of landscape elements, is substantially out of scale with the tiny little building. That acknowledged, the grid is setting the size for the translucent acrylic ceiling panels that we’re planning to install inside the structure so light can shine through and the ceiling will glow. I can’t include a picture of the project, but the image below should get the general idea across:

Image courtesy http://www.extenzo.com/

I don’t know if you’ve worked with 1/2″ translucent acrylic panels lately, but let me tell you: they are all kinds of heavy. As originally designed, each of our panels would have weighed 300 pounds, causing a deflection of approximately 0.7″ (which means that our glowing ceiling would take on an appearance that can only be described as pillowed, undeniably and distastefully similar to deluxe toilet paper. One highly intriguing solution (which at the time of this writing is not being pursued, meaning I get to write about what I’ve learned instead of drawing it into our construction documents) would be to install a light weight, translucent, stretch fabric ceiling – rather than cutting the panels down and jumping through proverbial hoops to support their weight (…er – not that that is happening).

Image courtesy Newmat USA

Stretch fabric ceiling systems consist of a ceiling membrane, rails to attach the membrane to the walls, rings or grommets to allow light fixtures and other miscellaneous objects to penetrate the membrane, and subframing, which allows the membrane to change direction, slope, etc. The ceiling membranes can be obtained in many different finishes from various manufacturers, including lacquer, matte, mesh, perforated, and of course, translucent.  Two companies I’ve been researching lately are Newmat USA and Extenzo. Looking at photos of their installations made me wonder if I haven’t seen stretch ceilings installed without realizing they were there.

One of the major problems with glowing ceilings is the fact that the glow doesn’t last forever. Eventually lamps burn out, no matter what, and you have to change them. Using big heavy ceiling panels means that when this happens, a maintenance person has to find a friend or two, grab a ladder, and start shoving ceiling panels around. If the panels are delicate, they will break. If they are heavy, they will be dropped. A stretch ceiling is light weight and can easily detach from its supporting rails to allow for maintenance, and I’d imagine that replacing a damaged membrane wouldn’t be too difficult.

Image courtesy http://www.extenzo.com/

The other interesting aspect of stretch fabric systems is that they allow the ceiling surface to take on wild deformations that simply aren’t possible with other systems due to how much it would cost or the complexity of fabrication. A project for the customs house in Sydney, Australia by LAVA (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) is an example of an installation of the product that takes advantage of its properties:

Image courtesy dezeen.com

Has anyone installed one of these systems? Let me know how it went!

WU XING: I’m filing stretch fabric ceilings under metal and wood, because they’re flexible and involve fastening.

Cited:

“Green Void by LAVA.” Dezeen. 12/16/08. Accessed 1/31/11. URL.