Web of North

Architect: Kas Oosterhuis
2002 . Haarlemmermeer














The Web of North-Holland made a successful soft landing on the Floriade World Exhibition site in the Haarlemmermeerpolder in the Netherlands. The Web is designed in the weightless space of the computer. First in the execution phase ONL unleashed gravity as an active force working upon the 3d model. ONL has sculpted the 3d model, sculpting the data of the kneadable substance like digital clay. A variety of techniques have been used: output using the milling machine, input with the 3d digitizer, modelling with a digital surface sculpting tool.

Twisted icosahedron. Started from the chosen sixfrequent icosahedron grid, ONL has invented an absolutely new structural principle: a 3d triangular grid of flat and folded steel plates connecting the weighed normals, which are the lines perpendicular to the surface of the nurbs model as directed to the inside. ONL realized the hotline between the digital 3d model and the steel manufacturer. ONL wrote in-house an Autolisp routine which extracts the elements from the 3d model, places them on a reference plane, flattens them and attaches the relevant data. Buckling points and angular rotations are administrated in a database. All elements are unique in shape and thickness.

It is important to apply a transparent coding system for production and assembly purposes. In this process the 2d drawing plays no role. It is a file to factory process where the digital 3d model of the designer communicates directly with the programmable cutting machines of the steel manufacturer

Generic concept leads to specific result. The innovative steel structure can follow in principle each possible double curved shape. In this respect the ONL invention is of generic value for the building industry at large. The clue is to turn the exception into the norm. Providing solutions for mass customization, and responding to forces in nowadays society commanding individualisation of the production process.

The Web has been assembled as a 1:1 mock-up in the workshop of the steel manufacturer. Then after 3 weeks it has been taken apart, coated, transported and assembled on-site.

Paper thin skin. A similar file to factory procedure has been followed for the production of the triangular ultralight Hylite aluminium panels. No triangle is the same, there is no repetition. The soft-edged triangular panels are folded over the curved exterior contours of the steel structure. Hylite is a very elastic 2mm thin composite and is capable of absorbing internal forces in the surface. These material characteristics have formed the basis of the ONL design for the robust construction in relation to the seemingly fragile but vandal proof paper thin skin

by Kas Oosterhuis