Structural and unstructural representation of pneumatic skin in long-span buildings

Under the background of mass media and digital technique, pneumatic skin design of long-span buildings has three levels of structural and unstructural representation. They are marcoscopic (reappearance of major structure), middle (arrangement of pneumatic cushions) and microscopic (expression of membrane material). Moreover, when architectures express their meanings, six methods, which represent different aspects of the referential objects, can be coordinatively applied to symbolize them with equal status. Therefore, as design methods, the structural and unstructural representation are not the opposite of each other, which two can co-exist and resolve the key problem of beauty in skin´s form together. In the end, from a long-term perspective, media along with digital technique are only one of many ways of resolving structures from the view point of long history.