Wall de Mort - or the amazing concrete quilt

 [Image: Concrete surface cast in fabric formwork braced in a cheap garden fence. Student work. Photo: A-M Manelius]

A wonderful concrete piece was stripped just before I went home after yet an intense workshop pour day described in the previous post. The students called it Wall de Mort in their report - I wonder if they had a tough time?

The plastic, shiny surface really cheats the eye - both on camera and on site the concrete surface really doesn't look like concrete but as if the fabric is still there.
Here are a few shots from the piece cast in fabric and braced by a cheap garden fence. The formwork system is so simple that it deserves publishing -

[Detail of formwork before the pour]

[Image of students during the pour - Rasmus uses a shovel to compact the concrete from the outside. Photos from the workshop]

 [Image: The fabric formwork bulging after the pour. Photo: Tenna Beck]

It's truly fantastic that such little use of material can produce a structure like this!!
To keep the form from bulging out the constraining fence on each side of the form was tied together with metal wire in a system of carefully placed ties. A simple variation created a really cool pattern on the surface of the concrete.

 [Image: The fabric formwork and bracing fence. The pattern comes from excess water/cement paste gone through the woven fabric during the pour]

[Students working on the stripped fabric formed concrete. Photo: A-M Manelius]

[Image of fabric formed concrete slab. Rasmus removing metal wire which held the form together. Imprints from garden fence. Photo: A-M Manelius]

[Little streams of cement paste found their way through the fabric landscape sandwiched between two pieces of plywood at the bottom of the formwork]