What is tensegrity and why is it always cool
Surely everyone has seen on the Internet, and some in real life, unusual furniture that seems to exist contrary to the laws of physics. But these things, created using the principle of tensegrity, on the contrary, very clearly demonstrate us the triumph of scientific thought in a single stool or coffee table.
Tensegrity is a term used for more than just furniture. This is the fundamental principle of the design of nature, which stands for tensional integrity, and translates something like this: "integrity through stretching." This definition was coined by the American architect, designer and engineer Richard Buckminster Fuller, who believed that modern architecture should be closer to wildlife.
Fuller was born almost blind and created almost all of his creations based on tactile sensations. He believed that triangles and tetrahedra are the most stable forms. Back in the 1920s, the architect proved that everything in nature is built on the principle of tensegrity, with a balance of strained connections.
Even a person, braided with flexible and contracting muscles, tendons and ligaments, uniting the skeleton with hinges - joints, according to Fuller, completely fit into the canons of his theory. Already after the death of the engineer, whom many considered a dreamer, science proved that the principle of tensegrity, as he claimed, is the fundamental principle of designing nature, acting at the level of organs, tissues, cells and even molecules.
The scientist Karl Johanson (1890-1929) even a quarter of a century before the creation of this term by Fuller, delighted visitors to technical exhibitions with his "self-stressed structures."
The principle of tensegrity is successfully used in the creation of various structures with cables, chains and rods, some of which work in tension, while others work in compression, but in combination they provide stability, strength and durability to the structure.
Such structures, using tension and compression, are also called tightly-bound. Their calculation and production seem complicated only at first glance - in fact, everything is simple and very natural. You can easily understand how this furniture is arranged if you abstract from stereotypes and connect fantasy and a little spatial thinking. See how beautiful and technological these interior items are, created from the simplest materials.
