Pre-rational approach for bamboo construction from a Dini surface

Overview & Synopsis

This paper is focused on the development of a geometric approach that provides favorable constructive properties for the low-tech construction of doubly curved bamboo structures. The approach was developed for a structure that was built in connection with the exhibition Plant Fever at Pillnitz Palace and Park near Dresden. Due to site and project constraints, a specific fabrication and assembly approach is employed, involving curved bamboo poles arranged in planes, orthogonal intersection of the primary and secondary structure while bisecting thebracing structure from straight, flat bamboo splits. These fabrication and assembly concepts can be translated into geometry properties of at least one direction of its coordinate curves planar (PU-patch) and correspondence between principal and asymptotic patch. Using a pre-rationalization approach, we define the design domain of negative constant Gaussian curvature (nCGC) surfaces to meet the geometric conditions exploring the Dini surface because of its resemblance to an unrolling leaf. Following form definition, the used fabrication techniques are traditional bamboo methods, namely "Rup-rup" and "Lidi-bundles". The structure was completed in seven days with 20 participants of the "Architectural Math for Bamboo Structures" summer school organized by the GMV research group at TU Dresden.