The winning projects of the Dutch 2012 National Steel prize have been announced on 4th of October. The roof of the Dutch Maritime Museum of Ney & Partners is one of the six winners. Out of 158 entries, 14 nominations it was chosen in the category: “characteristic building element”. The comment of the jury: “The apparent weightlessness of the roof is fascinating, it’s designed ‘hanging’, but works entirely under compression, the technique is refined, the engineering inventive, the lighting is spectacular and the respect for the existing brick building remarkable. Rightly a winner”.
For more specific detail about the form-finding of this roof, you can read our paper Adriaenssens, S., Ney, L., Bodarwe, E., and Williams, C. (2012). ”Finding the Form of an Irregular Meshed Steel and Glass Shell Based on Construction Constraints.” J. Archit. Eng., 18(3), 206–213. doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)AE.1943-5568.0000074
Photo courtesy Ney and Partners