© B+G

BMW 'Wave'

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City, Country Munich, Germany
Year 1999–2000
Client BMW Group
Architect Bernhard Franken, ABB Architekten
Services Structural Engineering
Awards FEIDAD Award, Taiwan 2000, Best digital process

For the exhibition at the EXPO in Hanover, BMW presented the technological progress of hydrogen technology in an exhibition hall at the trade fair in Munich. In the exhibition hall swings a "wave" comprising an aluminium tube structure, covered with highly translucent projection screens. The BMW "Wave" resulted from a force field simulation. A light signal initiates the move, bundled by the force fields around the ribs of the hall, towering in the centre of the hall to a dynamic "wave hill".

The construction comprises lattices which derived from the force field simulation and were directly transferred to the tube structures, all individually double-curved. The multiple-curved lattice was covered with projection membranes. The lattice structure which bears the entire wave comprises specially developed aluminium sections with integrated grooves, enabling the mounting of joints for connecting the top and bottom flanges of the shell and the membranes.

Temporary & Mobile
Membranes