How to best modernize a 1960’s era beachside powerplant in the spirt of the local city’s surf culture? A 120ft tall architectural screen was proposed to complement renovation of the coastal facility and adjacent marshland. Structurally derived design by Endrestudio.
Steel masts are delicately pinned to concrete foundations, leaning 20° in alternating directions. Tension net sails span between masts in an elegant balancing act. A cable truss connects masts and adjacent concrete plinths, stabilizing the system.
Fifty thousand plastic spheres two feet in diameter would be painted ocean blue and hung from the net at regular intervals, creating a moiré pattern bridging sea and sky. The proposed wave wall would wrap the facility, gently rising and falling like a tidal wave.
Construction of a mock-up guided connection design to increase constructability of the intricate system. Wind loading on the system required careful study and wind tunnel testing to accurately simulate dynamic effects on the sensitive tensile system.
Curvature of the tension net diagrid is optimized to distribute tensile forces through the system. The resulting scalloped net profile mimics the shape of cresting waves iconic to the coastal city.
