Aspiring toward the skies and plunging down to momentarily touch the fountain, a 2,000 square foot tensioned fabric canopy in the courtyard of Lawrence Hall was the most noticeable construction to come from the Arch 407 / 507 course, Advanced Structures Seminar: Light Weight Structures, during fall term, 1996. The canopy was designed and built in a weekend Tensioned Fabric Workshop, led by graduate students Dale Clifford and Fredrick H. Zal, which dovetailed with the seminar they taught with Professor Don Peting.





The weekend Tensioned Fabric Workshop was guided through a November downpour by Charles Duvall, an architect and sculptor from Camden, Maine; whose love of teaching motivates him to donate his time to academic and civic projects worldwide. The workshop allowed the seminar students to explore some of the possible applications for the research they had been conducting with other students and with members of the Eugene community. Continuing the long tradition of cutting edge architecture at the University of Oregon, this workshop developed the intuitive creative process and structural understanding of the participants. The resulting canopy gracefully twisted, turned and undulated with the varied spaces of the courtyard. It swooped down over fifty feet from the top of Lawrence Hall, slicing between tree branches and delicately curving around a trunk.



The seminar students later investigated the principles of tensegrity in another full-scale construction. Tensegrity is a principle developed by Kenneth Snelson, which can be defined as a system of discontinuous compression elements held together in a sea of tension members. The twelve-foot tall structural sculpture is composed of five tilted aluminum masts that seemingly float in space, due to the juxtaposed lightness of the cables, which hold them in place. To heighten the tension of this piece; it tenuously rests upon the rim of the fountain in the courtyard. One of the significant developments of this project was a self-correcting connection detail for the compression members, which was welded together by the students in the seminar.



DIRECTION
Fredrick H. Zal, U.Oregon, Graduate Teaching Fellow
Dale T. Clifford, U.Oregon, Graduate Teaching Fellow
Charles Duvall, Architect / Sculptor
Donald Peting, U.Oregon, Professor




SEMINAR
Isaac Ward;
Reem Farhat;
Todd Gilmore;
Kate Coffey;
Nichelle Seele;
Corey Saft;
Peter Holtzman;
Scott Stolarczyk.

WORKSHOP
Deborah Smith;
Nancy Cheng;
Kelle Brooks;
Scott Passman;
Kate Coffey;
David Reusch;
Kendra Carson;
Chuck Roberts;
Corey Saft;
Nichelle Seele;
Scott Adams;
Peter Holtzman;
Nick Kucinski;
Joanna Stainbrook;
Loren Hill.

PROJECT: Tensioned Fabric Workshop, Canopy, 1996
LOCATION: eugene, oregon
CLIENT: University of Oregon
FUNDING: University of Oregon Lecture Series, Graduate Forum on Architectural Design.
PUBLICATION: Zal, Fredrick H. A&AA Review, U.Oregon. "Tensioned Fabric Workshop Explores Structures." v.XV, No.2.Spring 1997, p.[cover], 4.