Page 70 - Between light and shade

between light and shade, TRANSPARENCy and reflection

It covers an industrial workspace and two
masonry structures, one of which houses cold
stores and the other offices and laboratories,
which are heated in winter.

That at the Neanderthal Museum in Erkrath
Mettman, Germany [01/290, Fig. 66] is a section
of an elliptic cylinder (K = 0) covering the
archaeological site. Misters spray water (hard
water for a time) on the external surface, which is
made from clear trapezoidal panes, both cooling
the enclosed space and covering it, after some
time, with a translucent limescale coating.

The canopy covering Petrofina’s company
restaurant, on Rue Guimard in Brussels [01/313,
Fig. 67] is a cylinder in the form of a catenary 70
(K = 0), with its rectangular double glazing panes
being supported by small curved steel IPE80
profiles suspended from the adjoining buildings,
providing it with shade.

Finally, the canopy of the exhibition tower at
the Glass Museum in Lommel [01/469, Fig. 68
and 69] adopts the form of a cone with a circu-
lar base (K > 0). The double glazed panes with
a reflective coating and the mesh of the fine
structure of steel tubes that support them are
triangular.Although the wooden framework
of the Comptoir and the limescale coating in

70 The catenary is the form adopted by a cable crossing a hori-
zontal span where it is suspended by its ends and subjected to
a vertical force that is evenly distributed along its length.
70