Sorry for the late post, since I haven't said much in a while, this will be a long one (hehe)
First let me show you a Canadian setting that inspired me for my design.
The Vancouver Islands have an interesting typography where karst is found in most of the islands. Karst is a geological process where the landscape is shaped by dissolving action of water on carbonate bedrock over thousands of years. This leads to unusual surfaces, sinkholes, springs and complex underground drainage systems. A graphic is shown below showing how caves are formed.
This a natural process, so interventions of this....
Logging road systems, timber harvesting, slash burning, all interrupt the natural soil condition and causes this to happen in BC...
This doesn't seem like a safe way to enter a cave right? But this is what I imagine what the openings look underneath with streams carving through the caves. And then you will get views of this...
So with all these elements, I imagine an exoskeleton will be connected to the endoskeleton structure, where the exo still provides the canopy/protection and the endo is the pathway leading into the caves.
With this iteration, apparently it was too much like a teepee party and I went towards something more rigid and where people can walk through.
I decided that the canopy should appear as it is "growing" out of the cave and the structural connections to grade should be within the cave. Scans of my sketches will be up soon to show you what I mean. Keep in mind that the reason why this does not touch the bottom of the cave is because it is covered with water as seen above.
I thought it would appropriate to end this post with something I found a couple of days ago which is related to my project. It gave me a whole new meaning towards caving, I mean spelunking.
Remember at the desk review that there are two key parameters to your design:
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b) the tensioned structure should not only keep up the above-grade "exoskeleton" but facilitate holding up the walkway through the cavern
You should be using steel as liberally as possible in order to ensure that the project is about tension rods as opposed to simply cables.