QuaDror is a new space truss geometry developed by Israeli designer Dror Benshetrit that exhibits some extraordinary structural properties.
Unveiled publicly earlier this year at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town, the QuaDror joint was initially created in 2006-07 as a structural frame for his Floor Chandelier designed for Swarovski. Four further years of intrigue and investigation of the geometric form led to continual discovery of its versatility as a structural element.
The QuaDror joint is made up of four identical L-shaped pieces joined with a corner hinge that allow the structure to lay flat or open in such a way that the resulting three dimensional form is identical on all four sides and always parallel to the ground.
Due to its unique geometry and construction, the QuaDror boasts the stability and load-bearing capacity of a cube with only 1/5 of the volume, can be collapsed flat to take up 50% less space for transportation or storage, and displays excellent acoustic and sun reverberation properties.
One notable application of the QuaDror is as a building block for simple yet strong relief structures that can withstand a variety of harsh weather conditions. Due to its collapsibility, 1750 such relief structure kits could be shipped within a single 40ft container. In fact, the QuaDror Home was a semi-finalist in the 2011 Buckminster-Fuller Challenge.
Given its myriad applications as a superior structural element, I would expect to see a lot more of the QuaDror joint in future projects -- both large and small. It really is a remarkable geometric construction.