The launching of satellites into
space, the resulting space race and the progress of material chemistry post World
War II drove a new spatial and material language for architectural experiments.
Glass fibre reinforced plastics were relatively unfamiliar matrices. Glass
fibre matrices were studied for military use allowing for much lighter and
stronger aeronautic structures. The correlation between lighter airplanes,
space shuttle development and capsule architecture is articulated to the
chemistry of this new material research. The Glass fibre reinforced stressed
skin panel construction on Polykem’s Ventura House, the Monsanto house of the
future or the even more UFO like finish future houses designed by Matti Suuronen are the
flagship projects of this new material language.
Imagining the colonisation of difficult
and barren moonscapes also contributed to this space age architecture of autonomous
settlement. This combining of integrated systems, lightness and capsule
representation was used in various contexts but none more barren than the
Canadian Arctic. Nunavut, Canada's most climatically difficult landscape was
the focal point of Papineau, Gérin-Lajoie, Leblanc, architect’s (a post-war
emerging French Canadian firm) most technically innovative experiments.
The Fort Chimo air terminal was among
several of the firm’s experiments in attaching GFRP panels to a lightweight
structural steel frame. The GFRP contributed to a lightweight and highly
insulating envelope conducive to weathertightness and an aerodynamic overall
building form. The stressed skin envelope was easy to transport, easy to
assemble, and flexible enough to support quick on-site project management; It
allowed for the envelope to be air-tight and for work to continue in a climate
controlled environment.
Along with the Fort Chimo air
terminal, the inuksuk secondary school used the same principle. The panels
included exterior and interior GFRP with a rigid insulation core. The assembly
points were overlapped to avoid thermal bridging and windows were reduced to a
porthole minimum. The lightweight panels and steel structure optimised
transport by ship or air and were included in an overall kit of parts strategy
for construction. This strategy also allowed for local labour to be used in the
assembly of a simple «meccano» type erector set construction system. The
combination of innovative construction with intelligent passive massing
strategies contributed to an innovative construction system for the difficult
Arctic winters.
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| Air terminal published in Progressive Architecture, September 1972 |
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