Valentín Gómez Jáuregui

Tensegrity structures are really intriguing: bars floating in the air, without any contact to a solid support, attached only by wires to other bars? that are also floating in the air! The aim of this work is to serve as an introduction to such an atypical kind of structure. It tries to explain everything about the controversial origins and polemic fatherhood; tensegrities from various fields, other than Architecture, structural principles, characteristics, advantages and weakness; precedent and current works and patents; and finally, some new proposals, proving that it is possible to find some applications to architectural and engineering purposes. In conclusion, this work tries to be a guide and reference to a new world of structural possibilities that is blooming and finding its path.

El experto realiza en la obra un completo estudio sobre unas estructuras asombrosas y espectaculares, que constan de barras que flotan en el aire, estando únicamente sujetas mediante cables a otras barras que tambien flotan. Estos sistemas de compresion flotante tienen multiples aplicaciones en arquitectura, arte, ingenieria... y estan presentes en obras como la escultura Torre de Agujas de Kenneth Snelson (formada por estas barras flotantes) o la mayor cupula del mundo, la cupula del Georgia Dome, estadio de los Falcons de Atlanta, teniendo sus precedentes en el Estadio Olimpico de Munich