How tensegrity holds nations together

NEARLY a century ago a first dedicated attempt was made to describe a mind-boggling scientific principle in structural design and construction - the principal of “tensional integrity”.

- RUDI BUYS

The principle describes how it happens that structures can be extremely stable and strong when its isolated parts are pushing in different directions, even to the point of each one seemingly hovering in midair, on its own and disconnected from all the other parts.

All connected in a network, the various parts, however, through pushing inwards and outward, establish a structure which is so solid that it can hold together a body, or carry a mass, which is much larger and heavier than each of the parts could do on their own. Moreover, when connected in this way, the scale of what such a structure can carry or hold together outstrips even the total at which the sum of its parts would normally arrive.

Eventually named the principle of “tensegrity”, it was soon applied not only in architecture and engineering, but also in other scientific fields, such as in the fields of biology and biophysics to explain how the human body holds together and its separate cells retain their shape. Tensegrity shows that some parts are under continuous tension, pushing inwards towards against other parts that are under continuous compression, pushing outwards - a constant conflict that must seemingly destroy the structure by pulling and pushing it apart. What holds them together is the balance between the opposing directions of pulling and pushing.