An international jury of renowned civil engineers and architects presented eight awards in various categories to the winners of the ‘Textile Structures for New Building’ competition at Techtextil. With this competition for students, Techtextil honors the ideas of students and young professionals on building with textiles and textile-reinforced materials.

“The award-winning projects were selected by the jury for their inspiration and new architectural perspectives. The spectrum ranges from visually appealing air-inflated halls and improved tent dwellings for refugee camps, via flexible, lightweight exterior shells and textile interior-furnishing systems, to smart façade elements and woven structures made of concrete,” explains Michael Jänecke, brand manager Technical Textiles and Textile Processing at Messe Frankfurt. “The projects illustrate the variety of applications for textile structures in architecture and building.”

The jury gave three awards in the micro-architecture category, two in the material innovation category and one in the composites and hybrid structures category. Together with the TensiNet association, Messe Frankfurt presented the awards at the special student competition area (Hall 4.1, stand H41) during Techtextil on May 9.

With the support of the international TensiNet association, Techtextil honors students and young professionals from the fields of architecture, civil engineering and product design with the award. The technical/scientific supervisor is Prof. Werner Sobek, director of the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) of the University of Stuttgart.

The award-winning projects are:

First prize in the macro-architecture category goes to Katrin Fleischer of the Technical University of Munich for her‘Deployable Roof,’ a mobile canopy consisting of a folding support grid in the form of a barrel vault and an integrated membrane covering held under tension by bending-active slats. Second prize goes to Margarita Fernández Colombás, Miguel Ángel Maure Blesa, Raquel Ocón Ruiz and Hugo Cifre of the European University of Madrid for their ‘Espacio de la Nube.’ The project is based on pneumatic-tent technology, which is familiar from covered tennis courts. The jury was impressed by the complexity of the project on the aesthetic, structural and spatial planes. Third prize in this category went to Ahmad Nouraldeen of the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences for his design of a tent dwelling for refugee camps. In terms of form and function, the tent is reminiscent of the wigwams of American Indians. However, it also integrates renewable energies and improved the quality of life of the inhabitants through the inclusion of thermal insulation and ventilation.

First prize in micro-architecture category goes to Luani Costa of the University of Minho in Portugal for a smart façade element. The adaptive system consists of triangular membrane elements that the user can open or close individually or all together in response to the conditions prevailing, i.e., wind, rain or sunshine. Second prize goes to Julia Mayer of the Technical University of Vienna for ‘Tryplo’, a reinterpretation of a modular system using textile components. The modular components are based on the tetrahedron and can be combined to make three-dimensional structures. In addition to applications as toys, the system is also suitable for use in furniture or textile structures.

In the material innovation category, first prize goes to Natascha Unger and Idalene Rapp of the Berlin-Weissensee Academy of Arts for their ‘Stone Web.’ The project illustrates one of the most important aspects of lightweight design and is a pioneering contribution to the use of fiber-based structures in the world of building. Second prize goes to Malu Lücking, Rebecca Schedler and Jack Randol (also from the Berlin-Weissensee Academy of Arts) for ‘Shifting Stone,’ a prefabricated basalt tissue system that can be integrated into a façade. The ‘Shifting Stone’ entry visualizes and employs the fascinating relationship between a fiber from one of the hardest stones and the transformation into a flexible, self-active system.

In the composites and hybrid structures category, Anne-Kathrin Kühner took first place with her idea for a concrete textile. To make the concrete textile, a textile tube is filled with high-performance concrete. The resulting filament is flexible and can be shaped immediately after the tube has been filled with concrete to create woven, knitted or knotted textiles.

The awarded projects will be on show throughout the fair in a special exhibition.