Folded plate shells
How to build such things in a simple way?
By a building system consisting of thick plates as prefabricated building elements. The plates are being joined together by their side faces directly or via bars mostly on the more acute angles between two adjoining plates. Plates and bars respectively have the form of a slanted prism. That is why nowhere clefts are gaping between obliquely adjacent plates. The joints are without gaps or offsets.
Each plate serves for thermal insulation and load bearing at the same time. Consequently, the polyhedral envelopes built by this new system are not, as usual, mounted onto a framework or suspended on it. Instead they have to be considered as both: supporting and thermally insulating shells due to their sufficient thickness.
Thus, the proposed building system is not a skeletal one but a building method based on large sized plate elements.
That is why there is no need for an "universal node", which is usually required in space frame systems, but which is not versatile enough for more complex structures.
This gives a degree of freedom concerning the choice of the spatial direction of the plates, which until now has not been known in constructing with large format plate elements.
The light-weight make of the plates is similar to those of flexible partition-wall systems.
Layers for air circulation and for tightness against wind and water can be integrated into the plate geometry.
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Is there a basic geometric unit? 
