Membrane Mechanics

In the U.S., the construction industry faces a crisis. Declining labor productivity, depleted natural resources, and wasteful disposal practices have all contributed to a built environment that is outdated, inefficient, and feeble. Like so many other others around the country, the A/E/C industry’s old M.O. is no longer viable.

Sigrid Adriaenssens, an associate professor at Princeton University, proposed a new way of construction at her recent lecture, “Harnessing Extraordinary Mechanics for Structural Design”, held at MIT. Her work interrogates what we design for, how we design, and how we build. These fundamental questions allow her to reformulate structural methods in construction; her focus is on slender surfaces with extreme loading that are designed using geometry and mechanics through a self-assembly process. Her framework pilots new materials, minimal material usage and energy requirements, and efficient methods of construction.

“We are really going to need [these interventions] because we are facing huge challenges; we need more floor space, we have much bigg…