The material, ETFE, is being showcased at the Beijing Olympics as the material used to construct the National Aquatics Center. ETFE is an extraordinarily thin, lightweight, flexible, self-cleaning ...

In the old days, before the advent of high-tech, weather-impervious fabrics, the decision for those in the market for outdoor cushions was pretty simple: Buy the green, tufted canvas over a ...

The outer structure of the stunning "Water Cube" at the Beijing Olympics is made of air-filled polymer cushions that require 200 times less energy than glass.

The domed building is covered in ETFE foil cushions, a type of film that can be used as an alternative to glass. On the northern side, those cushions contain two layers of foil, making them ...

David Dennis, Associate Principal at Grimshaw explained how this was achieved through a double-layered ETFE cushion that spans 164 feet across a complicated twin-gridshell canopy.

The ETFE foil cushions, up to 2m deep at their centres, are formed from three layers of foil to create two cavities which are filled with air and lightly pressurised. The edges of the cushions are ...