Tensegrity and Bamboo

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This workshop will concentrate on the developments of self-supporting structures, combined with the constructive potential of bamboo for the needs of scientific research in forest areas.

Self-supporting structures

Constructers and researchers have always been attracted to self-supporting structures and their outstanding benefits. Since the 1950s, lightweight structures of this kind have been developed for design, architecture and sculpture.

Bamboo

As bamboo poles are hollow, they measure up perfectly to the structural and constructional preconditions of self-supporting structures. The Bambouseraie in Anduze will sponsor the bamboo.

This workshop aims at giving insights into design processes and the challenges it poses to rational thinking, fantasy and technical expertise. A series of models will introduce possible structures, of which the group will construct one. The life-size structure and the presentation will take place at the Domaine de Boisbuchet (on the lawn or freely suspending in a tree…). After the workshop, this structure will be transported to the Bambouseraie in Anduze and will be part of a seasonal exhibition.

A supply of elements, such as bamboo poles, connecting pieces and cables, will be at the participants’ disposal.

Gilles Ebersolt (F)

To reinvent the habitat or the workspace, to project them onto a dimension of jest – is this not a philosophy worth pursuing for our new lifestyles?

Gilles Ebersolt was born in 1957 in France. He studied architecture and landscape design. Today he is an inventor who specialises in interdisciplinary architecture, from load-bearing structures carried out in situ using all kind of raw materials.

His architectural responses, incorporated into their environment, guarantee the esthetical and practical pertinence of the works. His obvious attraction for mobility, allows crossing over the notion of foundations and authorizes an adaptation of the most diverse supports in unexplored places: on water, in trees, on snow. In the same way, he has affection for reprocessed items that he spends time operating with, and comes up with true prototypes - unusual, light and performing ones. The range counts from a raft for the rainforest, structures from inflated plastic, plastic tubing and nylon netting – to more traditional architectural work as the reconversion of an old farmhouse into concert hall, restaurant, accommodations, exhibition space, workshop space etc.

Gilles Ebersolt has participated in several workshops, some on the theme “canopy”, “livable structures” and “bubbles, tubes and pipes”. He is a regular teacher at the The National Superior School of Architecture of Versailles.