Techtextil, the leading international trade fair for technical textiles and non-wovens, introduces architects, building owners, construction engineers and planners to a wide range of fibre-based materials for the ‘Buildtech’ sector. In line with this, the winners of the ‘Textile Structures for New Building’ competition have been chosen. An international jury of renowned civil engineers and architects gave eight awards in various categories.

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With the support of the international TensiNet association, Techtextil honours students and young professionals from the fields of architecture, civil engineering and product design with the award. First prize in the macro-architecture category goes to Katrin Fleischer of the Technical University of Munich for her ‘Deployable Roof’, a mobile canopy consisting of a folding support grid in the form of a barrel vault and an integrated membrane covering held under tension by bending-active slats.

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First prize in micro-architecture category goes to Luani Costa of the University of Minho in Portugal for a smart façade element. The adaptive system consists of triangular membrane elements that the user can open or close individually or all together in response to the conditions prevailing, i.e., wind, rain or sunshine. In the material innovation category, first prize goes to Natascha Unger and Idalene Rapp of the Berlin-Weissensee Academy of Arts for their ‘Stone Web’. The project illustrates one of the most important aspects of lightweight design and is a pioneering contribution to the use of fibrebased structures in the world of building.