The spoked wheel The spoked wheel is a highly intelligent and efficient structure. The rim without the spokes is completely soft, but becomes surprisingly stiff with the addition of thin spokes. The spokes will never become slack because they are "prestressed" – and ingenious trick! Therefore, the spoked wheel can be used as a transparent "diaphragm" for the stiffening of tubes			(such as cable-net cooling towers and solar updraft towers) or of cylindrical light-weight glass- and membrane roofs. Even loads acting transversally from the wheel to the hub are carried to the rim by the spokes. We apply this principle for example in the design of our cable- /membrane roofs for large stadia. Example: DG Bank Pariser Platz, Berlin