Describes and evaluates several avant garde'' examples of air structures. Included are a soft'' child's playpen, a pneudome that employs a water ballast for anchoring, a one-acre enclosed campus, an instant city'' constructed for an industrial design conference, and the Fuji Pavilion, at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, that was large enough to cover a 10-story building. Discusses current experiments that are attemtpting to increase the stability and lower the costs of inflatable structures. (EA)