Modular dome architects take a square route

Zendome GmbH, Berlin, Germany, built its successful event architecture business—and its reputation—on “the organic form of the hemisphere.” The company designs and produces mobile, modular event architecture, specializing in geodesic tensioned-fabric domes that offer maximum space, use minimal materials and allow flexible configurations appropriate to almost any event. Now, Zendome is squaring up to “the most important Platonic form, the Hexahedron,” says managing director Carsten Fulland, with the introduction of a new spatial system: the Zencube.

The Zencube’s foundation is a winged piping system with a worldwide patent pending that allows membrane sides to be fixed to the system by geometric tension, making the cube appear to be entirely made of textile. The cube contains pneumatic elements, such as the Airpad Roof System, incorporated “for the first time in a small mobile structure,” according to Fulland. Zencube modules, which come in 3-by-3 or 5-by-5 meter sizes, can be configured into “cubescapes” of up to 75 square meters. All versions can be customized with printing, graphics, typography and color.