My dear friend Alex Thomass of 5elf recently sent me images of his latest project, the small­est per­ma­nent pneu­matic roof of the world.

‘5elf Berlin found an eco­nomic solu­tion to roof a pent­house ter­race with a pneu­mat­i­cal con​struc​tion.The highly light-​transmisive ETFE foil enables a weather pro­tec­tion with­out dark­en­ing the area which is closed on three sides.Thus the view to the sky is free and the roof with its eas­i­ness goes com­pletely in the background.

All required tech­ni­cal cables are com­pletely inte­grated into the sta­t­i­cally opti­mized steel con­struc­tion and are not vis​i​ble.To save energy costs and to min­i­mize noise of the air supply a med­ical mem­brane pump has been applied.’

I find it a pretty amaz­ing project. The frame is almost non-​existent, which makes it basi­cally a valve float­ing in the air.

Check the 5elf web­site for a little ani­ma­tion of the infla­tion and addi­tional text and images. You can find the project under ‘housing’ and the cushion-​logo. (Always so impos­si­ble to link to these fancy flash-​sites ;-)