Transstudio

Transstudio’s Bridge Tower proposal was featured in the September/October 2009 issue of Fabric Architecture magazine. The project proposes an urban-scaled “cloak” comprised of intelligent thermal skins that optimize energy performance in existing buildings economically while transforming their potential uses.

The proposal is an effort meant to sideline such teardown and rebuild tactics and introduce a more thoughtful—if not provocative—sustainable scheme of overlaying existing buildings with a new structural envelope. Constructed from solar-harvesting ETFE fabric systems, (the same material employed by the Eden Project in Cornwall, England, and Beijing’s Water Cube), these architectural shrouds will be resilient to heavy lateral weight loads, insulate, allow light transmission and allow for the possibility of integrated printed photovoltaics.