Dante Bini

Dante Natale Bini or Dante Bini (born: April 22, 1932) is an Italian industrial designer and architect. He is noted for inventing the Binishell, which is a reinforced thin concrete shell structure that can be lifted and shaped by air pressure. He is also considered a pioneer of automated building construction sequences or automated building construction systems.

Background Bini was born in 1932 at Castelfranco Emilia, a commune in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

Bini married Adria Moretti in 1963. In 1981, he immigrated to the United States.

Career After leaving the University of Florence, Bini became interested in thin-shell concrete domes. He later developed a shell system technology that gave him international recognition.

Binishell By the 1960s, he started developing a system for inflating concrete domes after experimenting with inflated balloons as formwork. He was able to design a unique pneumatic formwork using a huge low-pressure balloon. During this period, Bini struggled with several problems, which included the uneven distribution of the wet concrete due to asymmetric inflation. Other Binishells constructed include the Cupola built for Michelangelo Antonioni and Monica Vitti as well as the Binishells built for the Fuji Pavilion during the 1970 Expo at Osaka.

The Binishell technology is also considered a potential solution to housing problems for displaced people, refugees, and evacuees, particularly in areas consistently damaged by disasters. Bini has offered the technology royalty-free to governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that intend to build shelters for these people. The original Binishell has withstood recurring volcanic eruptions and earthquakes on Mount Etna. a proposed vertical city over Tokyo Bay built by robots. This structure, which is intended to address urban congestion, is projected to accommodate from 250,000 to 750,000 people.

Bini has also invented a movable, self-erecting tent for the U.S. Army.

The architect has participated in initiatives advancing shell-concrete technology such the colloquium at the University of Stuttgart which focused on air and pneumatic structures.