Yo_cy's formwork tectonics

[Light and space inside the Cast Thicket by yo_cy, via]

Cast Thicket or filigree concrete

I have forgotten to repost this award winning project by yo_cy from Tex-Fab’s APPLIED: Research through Fabrication competition at the University of Texas at Arlington, which is posted on blog of the Architects' Newspaper A/N Blog. The project is familiar to some fabric-formed filigree-like projects with a major difference that it is facetted structure. Yet, despite being inspired by textile-like mats used for casting walls (which you can see way below), the formwork material is actually thin, lasercut plastic sheets. I enjoy the combination of digital fabrication and of combining the lasercut plastic sheets with the hydrostatic pressure from casting. 

“[With this project] we are reacting to the singular material tendency of digital fabrication and [we have shown that] we can use the computer to coordinate different methods of making a material, and simulate that on a smaller scale.” says Tracy, via

[Cast Thicket principle Via]

Cast Thicket is both a form of construction and a finished design product. To produce finished forms of reinforced concrete, construction begins with the design of prefabricated steel struts, which are positioned using a system of interlocking laser-cut plates. Formwork is also prefabricated and attached to the joints. Plastic formwork is then detached and reattached as the structure grows upwards. The final product has the possibility for infinite variation. via the competition site 

[Cast Thicket by yo_cy]

The structure is awesome and perhaps also thicket like (the title contains a new English word for me) - it rather reminds me of columns in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia as well as art pieces by the wonderful Ernesto Neto who fills spatial fabric structures with everything but concrete and plaster. Instead he uses eps, sand, and even spices.

[Ernesto Neto's fabric-formed soft world]

[Each piece of the plastic casing is connecting by a series of tabs. Photo:Kenneth Tracy]

[The plastic mold is held together with plastic zip ties. Photo:Kenneth Tracy]

While I find the work of yo_cy wonderful, I still have to let out a big sigh because of the overly time consuming construction. The idea of the 'tailor-made' as something related to flexible formwork is still so heavily labor intensive as you can tell on the image above, and thus far from being scaleable. I guess the work now can be compared to crocheting and not sewing.

Woven formwork for Kopo House

I am not sure if this house has been built but I'd love to see it if it does - the project is in Indonesia and contains the literal exploration of manufacturing a formwork textile, I mean the textile is in itself a structure with its own principles and the larger the fibers, the is it a building component and material in itself. yo_cy's Christine Yogiaman and Kenneth Tracy state as their profile that combining labor intensive acts in craft culture with rule-based, digital frameworks their projects in Indonesia multiply the everyday to intensify space. The images on the project show initial weaving samples inspired by Ketupat a sort of rise casting formwork... (!) that are manipulated and given form before it is used as formwork for plaster, I think. Other images show larger scale casts of modules and some rebar, so something is definitely being built. Fingers crossed.

The formwork principle is inspired by Indonesian cast rice dumplings known as Ketupat - wow, see below how great they are!

[Ketupat - --- I love these throwaway sturdy lunch boxes]

[woven mats used as formwork and a plaster cast for the  Kopo House project. I'd love to see the full scale version of this! via - Wait - below are bigger prototypes investigating some formwork types]

[Images of the Kopo House investigations, by Yo_cy]

Credits of the Cast Thicket:  Fabricators TOPOCAST

Competition Tex-Fab’s APPLIED: Research through Fabrication competition at the University of Texas at Arlington 

Designers Kenneth Tracy, Christine Yogiaman

Location Arlington, Texas

Date of Completion February 2013

Material limestone powder, white fiber reinforcement, Poraver glass beads, metakaolin, superplasticizer, .03-inch plastic

Process Rhino, Kangaroo, Grasshopper

Ensamble Studio's concrete sticks and bones

The Spanish architectural office Ensamble Studio uses concrete as a tectonic ensemble of elements or as a poured mass of liquid stone. Sticks and stones, in other words. -- enjoy a few videos of constructing the projects further down in this post.

Constructing solid space
For a while I was only familiar with their quirky project the Truffle. I like the conceptual approach to constructing space and structure. Bales of hay is used to construct the solid space, so to speak, and then concrete is poured all over it. - the main quirky part is the use of a neighbor's calf to feed off the hay and thus excavating the interior space over the summer. The cow grows as does the space.

[Image above by Ensamble Studio, 2010]

[Film about the cow Paulina and the project, YouTube link]

[This way of constructing space can be compared with the Bruder Klaus Kapel by Peter Zumthor. Here the space is constructed by wooded laths, cast in what appears to be a pisé technique - and finally the space is revealed by a fire burning away the wood.]

According to a lecture with an Ensamble Studio architect, the Truffle House was a prototype for another and much larger project to be cast in place and in which the different functions were conceived as spatial blocks connected by concrete pour. The studio did not win this competition but it would be great to see a scaled up version of this conceptual approach to casting, which is so bound to the process of construction and of very small projects.

Radical Sticks

Other projects use prefabricated and huge concrete elements, tectonic use of concrete sticks. - the Hemeroscopium House (2005) is pretty radical in its use of elements laying off eachother. And that's it - no cold bridges dealt with - and looots of concrete. I have seen images of livable spaces of the house. Images of the web site are more structural.

[Hemeroscopium House (2005) with the 'G point' rock on top. Via]

The office describes how: "It took us a year to engineer but only seven days to build the structure, thanks to a total prefabrication of the different elements and a perfectly coordinated rhythm of assembly. All of our effort oriented to develop the technique that would allow creating a very specific space. And thus, a new astonishing language is invented, where form disappears giving way to the naked space. Hemeroscopium house materializes the peak of its equilibrium with what in Ensamble Studio we ironically call the “G point”, a twenty ton granite stone, expression of the force of gravity and a physical counterweight to the whole structure."via

[Hemeroscopium House (2005) with the prestressed 'swimming pool profile' element. Via]

[4 minute movie of the construction, YouTube link]

Transformation of space and program

Reader's House is my favorite project and is the transformation of an old market hall to a cultural purpose. Here, long pre-streesed U-shaped elements, introduces a different orientation of the space, as well as the opportunity of a variety of programs on these bridge-like slabs. The slabs span the entire space in a simple and remarkable way.

[Images of the Reader's House, via]

"The Reader’s House project is the result of a competition that took place in 2006, in which Ensamble Studio won the first prize. The purpose of the competition was to restore the warehouses 13, 14, 17b and 17c of the Old Slaughterhouse to incorporate a new educational program.

The proposal made by Ensamble Studio maintains and enhances the original character of the industrial complex, by imposing a new order to the one of the pre-existent buildings. The confluence and relationship of the new system and the existing one forms a new space.

Two physical, perceptual and activity levels are defined forming a mutable scenario. The upper level, constructed with precast concrete beams of 40 Tons each, is a space for research and study. These beams are bridges, aerial streets, vectors of activity. In opposition to the basilica-like structure of the warehouses, longitudinal, light and metallic; the new structures are inserted through the windows and sew the space transversally, giving unity to the complex formed by the warehouses 13 and 14, which were previously independent buildings. The lower level participates, without losing its essence, of the rhythm marked by the upper level. Dynamic and mutable, this level will host the educational and cultural diffusion activities, enabling their future redefinition."From the Ensamble Studio website 

[Building the Reader's House, Youtube link]

Watch this video of the construction process - It's hard to explain and hard to believe the simplicity of the construction process, really - the accompanying music plays on this in Buster Keaton type way, I guess... I mean, Keaton and Ensamble do have some high precision planning in common if you think of this famous movie clip.

Constructing Knowledge, part II

The hard part in participating at a conference on Knowledge is of course that the question of Knowledge gets addressed to myself – how do I generate knowledge, what is it, at which part of my work does it ‘arrive’. Yikes – not that easy – but the question of knowledge is a framework to look and reflect on my production during the thesis work until now.

3 knowledge generators
Hmm – I have three references to look at from the past six months: a workshop with 60 first year students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture; the chairs experiment described here; and the full scale cast in Vermont introduced here and here. This post will get into the 'chairs' because, in a way the chairs experiment is a sort of physical summary of previous literature studies. Literature, objects, images and lectures on the topic of fabric forming all remain theoretical. Only by testing techniques and adding some personal thoughts on details or function do I or anyone generate knowledge – I know –  
you can describe the techniques and the feeling and even show it – not until you actually try it do you get an idea of what this could lead to - sort of like kissing.

Except, and thank you Rikke-Julie for that note - when it comes to the knowledge of kissing, that’s a pretty straight forward goal to pursue, you pretty much know what you’re searching for. When it comes to the architectural exploration of a completely new technology it really doesn’t seem all that simple. What is simple is that the continuous exploration of form and matter – more than just access to sources of descriptive knowledge and reflection and more than experience alone, creates something – let’s call it knowledge – great, so this is what all designers and artists do and have done forever.

Reactions
An extra point of entry comes when the physical object exists with all the layers of reflection and acquired knowledge hidden behind the actual presence of something… it calls for a reaction from others than the maker – reactions, associations, references, discussion, more knowledge – and only because it exists. This shared knowledge is created by an actor network I guess – this is a theoretical approach to the world that I’m still not sure of how to use or if I really want to use but in these lines it does make sense.

[IMAGE: DISCUSSION ON CONCRETE AND SUCH
ON THE BASIS OF A PHYSICAL OBJECT] 

Experimental tectonic practice
A sort of finish in this weaving post is that this might just be the beginning – experimental tectonic practice which is the method of my thesis work - is all about generating knowledge. And like getting the knowledge of kissing, practice is fun!

Constructing Knowledge, part I

I’m on my way to a conference in Aachen, Germany with the broad title Constructing Knowledge. The conference is a celebration of the inaugural (first) issue of a new peer reviewed architectural journal – CANDIDE. Journal for Architectural Knowledge. The name is taken from a fictional character of Voltaire, Candide who travelled on an eager but often disappointed search for knowledge. For now, I'm yet eager and really quite excited about the journal – and the fact that the theme is knowledge and not research; this has the potential of really opening up for a wide range of interesting entries, methods and media which again could generate a wide audience amongst architects and others interested in the field.

What is knowledge in architecture?
So – the opening conference has the title Constructing Knowledge and some open question regarding what is knowledge in architecture and architectural production – what is research by design (or should I say knowledge?); “Do we search for or generate architectural knowledge?”; and not least: “Why should architects write when what they do best is design?” with subtitles: “Architecture, fiction and other stories” and “The digital turn after the ‘end of history’” the black box is open.

Knowledge and fabric forming
The next post will be on knowledge and fabric forming. I'm presenting a poster at the conference and out of four main topics my contribution has been labeled under three of them already - by the organizers that is - I'm not sure myself either to which part of the Knowledge Construction the practice of experimental tectonics belongs.