Tensegrity Bridge – Bucky Would be Proud
Tensegrity Bridge
The Tank Street Bridge will be a Tensegrity structure, pedestrian and bicycle bridge in Brisbane Australia’s inner city, linking the city centre and South Brisbane and completing a pedestrian and bicycle loop linking the city and South Bank via the Goodwill Bridge.
The bridge is part of the Brisbane City Centre Master Plan 2006 prepared by the Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Government’s South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan and Program 2008 – 2026.
With 1,500 people moving into South East Queensland each week, Brisbane is now at the centre of the fastest growing urban region in Australia. As the city continues to grow and inner city residential developments flourish, the demand for improved pedestrian and cycle pathways will grow.
Bucky With Tensegrity Model
Bucky Fuller invented the concept of a Tensegrity Structure – a structure with short compression members and long fluid tension members. Trying to avoid Euler Buckling problems inherent in compression structures, Fuller noted that when a structural element is in tension it can hold a tremendous amount of weight without fear of buckling.
Tensegrity was another of Bucky’s visions for doing more with less material.
More on the bridge: Queensland Government
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:15 am
Red Blood Cells use the same type of Architecture – but with a twist – rigid enough to maintain their shape, yet flexible when squeezing through tiny capillaries to deliver oxygen – bloody amazing bridge!
January 6th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Hey.
Tensegrity – just the word is something that bucky created. The actual origin of the term lies with kenneth snelson (www.kennethsnelson.net/) who was one of bucky’s students… He calls it “floating compression”
He has done a lot of sculptures based on the same concept, which looks a lot similar like the structure shown above… just to set the record straight.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Shehzad-
I will check out the kenneth nelson site. Thanks for the info!
John Barrie
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:40 am
Fuller described tensegrity extensively in “Synergetics”. The chapter on tensegrity is available for download at http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/print/p700.pdf . It’s tough reading.
A very smart student wrote “A Fuller Explanation”, which is available as a paperback and an e-book at http://www.lulu.com/content/664771 . That’s a much easier read.
The bridge doesn’t appear to be a full tensegrity. Only the horizontal struts have a “floating” relationship with the rest of the structure. In a classical tensegrity, none of the struts would be anchored. You almost never see a full-blown tensegrity in manmade structure (other than Snelson’s sculptures).
OTOH, nature uses tensegrity everywhere! See the papers at biotensegrity.com — compelling arguments that traditional compression-based models are inadequate. See the very cool medical-grade functional models at tinyurl.com/toms-models
There is one tensegrity-oriented anatomy book: “Anatomy Trains.” You can view a 20-page summary of the first edition at
anatomytrains.com -> explore -> articles -> Anatomy Trains Summary
AT is a wonderful book. 2nd edition is just out.
The bones: they float!