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The Arc Drapes Large Volumes to Create a Whimsical Structure

The Arc is the newest building on the Green School campus in Bali and is a new design vocabulary by IBUKU which is a structure of unprecedented beauty that is not only an incredible piece of bamboo architecture but serves as a reference in lightweight structures altogether.

The Arc is the newest building on campus at the world-renowned Green School in Bali, Indonesia. The school has a 12-year history of breaking boundaries and expanding horizons and the Arc is the newest benchmark in that history, raising the bar for sustainable education around the world. The first building of its kind ever made, The Arc at Green School is built from a series of intersecting 14-meter-tall bamboo arches spanning 19 meters, interconnected by anticlastic grid shells which derive their strength from curving in two opposite directions. The Arc is a new community wellness space and gymnasium for the campus, in collaboration with Jorg Stamm and Atelier One.

“The Arc is a feat of engineering; it required months of research and development and fine-tuning of tailor-made details. The result is a refined design with unparalleled beauty, which stands as a testament to IBUKU’s commitment to expanding horizons in architecture and design. Embarking on a design never before executed required some bravery and optimism. We were creative and stubborn enough to research and develop the answers needed for the success of the project,” according to Rowland Sauls, Project Architect, The Arc at Green School, IBUKU.

The Arc employs one of nature’s greatest strategies for creating large spaces with minimal structure. Within a human ribcage, a series of ribs working in compression are held in place by a tensioned flexible layer of muscle and skin. This creates a thin but strong encasement for the lungs. In the case of The Arc, arches working in compression are held in place by tensioned anticlastic grid shells. These fields of gridshells appear to drape across the spaces between impossibly thin arches soaring overhead, giving a whimsy, intimacy, and beauty to the space. Although the gridshells appear to hang from the arches, they actually hold them up.

“The gridshells use shape stiffness to form the roof enclosure and provide buckling resistance to the parabolic arches. The two systems together create a unique and highly efficient structure, able to flex under load allowing the structure to redistribute weight, easing localised forces on the arches,” says Neil Thomas, Director of Atelier One.

The Arc’s counterintuitive orchestration of geometry brings the structure into a state of equilibrium, which means a dramatically decreased necessity for structural material. This also means an unprecedented inner volume with an impossibly thin structure and without any distracting trusses.

 

The Arc’s counterintuitive orchestration of geometry brings the structure into a state of equilibrium, which means a dramatically decreased necessity for structural material. This also means an unprecedented inner volume with an impossibly thin structure and without any distracting trusses.

“The Arc at Green School Bali enters a new era for organic architecture, with its 19-meter span arches, interconnected by anticlastic gridshells. It is a new community wellness space and gymnasium for the extraordinary campus, collaboration with Jorg Stamm and Atelier One,” says Elora Hardy, Creative Director, IBUK.

Elora Hardy founded Ibuku. Over the past 11 years, IBUKU has built over 120 unique structures, most of them in Bali. According to Elora, bamboo is one sustainable material that we will not run out of. It grows around us, and grows faster than any other plant, is strong, elegant, and earthquake-resistant. And, according to the founder, bamboo will treat you well if you use it right.

PROJECT DETAILS: THE ARC

Length: 41 m (134 ft)

Height: 14 m (46 ft)

Floor Area: 760 sqm (8,180 sf)

Build Time: 8 months