From the history of plastics and membranes in architecture to their material properties and requirements in construction and design, the Construction Manual for Polymers + Membranes cuts to the chase, providing the kind of solid and comprehensive overview of the subject that readers have come to expect from the Construction Manual series. Selected project examples round off the reference work and make it indispensable for the day-to-day life of the professional planner and for every architecture library.
Whereas building with textiles can look back on thousands of years of tradition, plastics, or rather polymers, represent a comparatively new class of materials. So in that respect at first glance it might surprise the reader to discover both topics combined in one book. But this approach is less surprising when we consider the fact that it was not until the middle of the 20th century that membranes first found their way into architecture-as synthetic fibres and polymer coatings enabled the production of more durable, stronger textiles, which replaced the cotton cloth that had been used for tents up until that time. It was the development of modern synthetic materials that helped Frei Otto, Walter Bird and others to build their pioneering tensile surface structures, which quickly attracted attention and became widespread over the following decades.
