The first book about Fabric Formwork

I just posted the news of an upcoming book that features fabric formwork. I realize that I ought to share with you this book, the first book about Fabric formwork for concrete, I believe; and that is the title as well, "Fabric Formwork" (2007).

[The cover of "Fabric Formwork" by Chandler & Pedreschi, (eds.). Image from RIBA Bookshop]

The book, published by RIBA Publishing, is not the first publication that features concrete structure cast in fabrics - books about Felix Candela or Christopher Alexander has shell structures cast on suspended burlap. This book I believe however to be the first dedicated to the subject of fabric forming - and it is the first to collect reflections upon the contemporary research in the use of modern textile technologies and concrete.

The book consists of six essays about different aspects of fabric forming, from research methodologies, technical aspects, how to apply an aesthetics of concrete cast in textile as well as a discussion of the possible future of fabric formed concrete in construction.

[Image of 'Wall One', the result of a workshop project done at University of East London and discussed in the book. The image is from a great blog post collecting projects with 'Fluid Aggregates' by Katie Yash]

Despite lots of wonderful images and sketches, this is not your usual coffee table book. - just the fact that one of the more theoretical essays is entitled the Beautiful, the Sublime and the Ugly, which is an attempt to embrace the aesthetic appreciation between extremes in formal and structural expressions in concrete cast in textiles.

The editors of Fabric Formwork are prize winning researcher - Remo Pedreschi of the University of Edinburgh, and Alan Chandler of the University of East London.
The two have collaborated on research projects into fabric formwork and following the publication of the book back in 2007, Chandler & Pedreschi received the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2008.

Fabric formed concrete chair in print

It's summer and I'm trying to finish writing my thesis on fabric formwork - it's hard work - but something look forward to while working is the launch of a design book that features my Ambiguous concrete chair.

The cover of DIY Furniture, image from the publisher

"DIY Furniture: A Step-by-Step Guide" is edited by Christopher Stuart. Chris has worked hard in getting all the designs together and to finish the book - I'm proud to be included and i can't wait to see the result.


The publisher Laurence King Publishing writes about the book:

"Featuring 30 designs by leading designer-makers from around the world DIY Furniture shows you how to use simple techniques to make stunning designer furniture from scratch. 




Along with designs for seating and storage, the book also features projects for making your own bed, wardrobe, lighting and garden furniture. Each project features hand-drawn diagrams with short, easy-to-follow instructions on how to build the piece. 

All the projects can be easily assembled using common materials to be found at the local hardware store, allowing the reader to create unique designer pieces at a fraction of the normal cost. Brief biographies of all the featured designers are included at the end of the book"

The chair will be among 30 designs that you can make yourself - I bet the concrete chair will be the heaviest of them all.

The Ambiguous Chair - se more images here

Detail of Ambiguous Chair cast in fabric formwork.

Please, do share with me if you get inspired to make your own fabric formed concrete furniture.
Info about the publication:
Paperback
270 illustrations
144 pages
245 x 210 mm
ISBN 978 1 85669 742 2
£17.95
Published by Laurence King Publishing, October 2011

Lecture by Mark West

Mark West is the founder of the Center for Architectural Structures and Technology (CAST) at the University of Manitoba, Canada.
West is a pioneer of contemporary research into fabric formed concrete; recently he gave a lecture at ETH, Zürich hosted by the Block reseach group. Thanks to PhD-scholar and engineer Diederik Veenendaal who has sent me the link to the lecture on You Tube.

Above is the link to Mark West's lecture at ETH

Weaving galore

As a remark to the post about the machine park at Swedish School of Textiles, a friend forwarded a link of cutting edge use of weaving, namely the automated weaving of auto parts made from carbon-fibre and plastic.

 As technology blogger, Sandrine Ceurstemont explains in this NewScientist post: 

"It's a sports car few people will be able to get their hands on. In production since last December, only 500 Lexus LFAs will be produced and they were already sold out in early June 2010. But it's not just its top speed of 325 kilometres per hour that's attracting buyers. The car is being used as a test bed for newly-designed parts made from carbon fibre and plastic."

Of interest here, of course – is the key technology used, namely the high-tech circular loom, guided by lasers, that can weave 3D objects – (see the video link above).

Compared to steel or aluminium, carbon fibres make the car stronger and lighter but producing these components is much more time-consuming: only one car is currently being assembled per day.

3D-Woven sails
At a larger scale robotic weaving - or laminating is more the technique, I guess - is used for custom made three dimensional sails for racing boats. (See video link below by North Sails)

[Video of the weaving process of 3dl technology]

Woven architecture?]
When will this technology be used in architectural applications as woven load-bearing structures?? So spectacular - and seemingly achievable (at a 'certain cost'). In the concrete optics of this blog perspectives of producing high strength, low weight structures out of carbon would affect the way concrete structures are reinforced.

Textile concrete at Aachen
A cross disciplinary research project called Textil Beton (textile concrete) at the University of Aachen combines research in textile production technologies with reinforcement technologies of carbon fibres. The project was initiated in 1999 and running until 2012.

The abstract for the part-project Textile production, process and machine development is: For a sufficient and cost-effective reinforcement, a defined positioning of the fibers is necessary. Thus, a geometrically defined design of the textiles, both 2D and 3D, is required.   Aim of this project is the development and investigation of processes, which allow a textile production of non-corrosive reinforcements. Fibers used are alkali resistant glass, carbon and aramide.   Finally the investigation of integrated 3D textiles are focused in this project.

[Diamond lattice, prototype of textile reinforced concrete structure, from 'Insu-Shell']

For now, it seems as if the technology has mostly been developed for matting reinforcement that is flexible in two directions. The thin, non-corrisive reinforcement has been tested in repairing thin concrete shell structures. The technology seem ideal for this purpose because of the minimal required thickness of a protective layer of concrete.

I'm looking forward to more spatially woven reinforcement structures that combine the precision weaving of the Lexus robot with the knowledge of reinforcing concrete. They might be out there already.

Thank you, Jacob for forwarding the video link in the first place.

Computational Composites

To continue from my previous post from the happy day in Borås, I must introduce to you, Anna Valgårda.

I was invited to the Swedish School of Textiles by Anna Valgårda who has her background in computer science and did her  PhD project about the computer as a material. - as a post-doc at Borås she's also the head of the research school in practice based textile research.

Anna introduces her interest at her web site

I study the computer as a material for design. Computers, however, have no expression in and by themselves so in order to study and work with them I develop various "computational composites." The vision is that we through understanding the materiality of computers at some point will be able to work with computers in the same way we work with other more traditional materials like textile, glass, or wood. Current experiments evolve around textiles exploring the possibilities in the various structures of textiles.

 [Recurring Patterns piece, from Anna Valgårda's web site]

Anna writes about the ongoing project that were just exhibited at Salon de Mobile:

These prototypes are part of a larger project in the Smart Textile Design Lab at the Swedish School of Textile where we explore how to use programmable textile expressions in furniture design. What does it entail to design with expressions that change in context over time? What can these recurring patterns do to the use of furniture? What new kinds of furniture can we imagine?

Textile Tectonics

I great while ago I was fortunately invited to lecture at the Borås University, Swedish School of Textiles. The focus of my talk was obviously to be upon the textile aspects of research into fabric formwork for concrete structures.

It's no secret that most ongoing research into fabric forming deal with the forming principles and not so much developing textiles. - but, wow, was a visit to the 'machine park' at the university was overwhelming. It brings layers and layers upon the potentials of Textile Performance into fabric formwork. I'm sorry not to dwell into those aspects and share with you - for now, I'll share some images of machines.

Scroll through the images to get to a little treat of machine poetics:

[Weave]

[3d Knitting machine]

[A computer is aligned with each thread to go into the knit]

[Metal knits at Borås School of Textiles]

[Tube of metal knit at Borås School of Textiles]

[Knit at Borås School of Textiles]

['Section' of knit at Borås School of Textiles]

[Spatial knitting at Borås School of Textiles]

Since you made it here, it's time for a little treat - a movie the depicts the machine poetics of weaving. Thanks to the blogger at textilesmithing who did a post about fabric formwork - and for posting the link to the video...

[Valsa das Máquinas, Paramount Têxteis from grafikonstruct on Vimeo.]

  

I was invited to Borås by Anna Valgårda who has her background in computer science and did her  PhD project about the computer as a material. - as a post-doc at Borås she's also the head of the research school in practice based textile research. I've dedicated a post to introduce Anna here.

Concrete Benches cast in fabric

Wow, what a while it's been since my last post - well, as for now I've just finished a great workshop with 80 (yes, 80) first year students of architecture and architectural engineering. In a week's time the students had to design and produce a concrete bench: This included designing the formwork principles and building the formwork. Finally the students had to pour the pieces of around 300 liters each (750 kgs of concrete), and finally - strip the formwork and reveal the concrete evidence of the experiments...

[Students pouring the fabric formed concrete bench - and getting advice from the concrete sponsor, Unicon]

Here's an older post with some images of references to benches.

No blow outs
The pieces of this year's workshop weren't super tall - the tallest formwork was 140 cm high. Out of 12 pieces and 4 cubic meters of concrete, we had no blow outs - yipee - this wasn't really the case last year. Formwork pieces were all 2 meters high - and only one student piece survived in its initial state... read more about last years workshop here.

The Clover
Below are some images of the Clover Bench. More info to follow. Enjoy!

['Trekløver', the Clover. Fabric formed concrete bench. Student work at TEK1]

Do I need to say that the focus was on fabric formwork?

Besides being the subject of my research, fabric formwork has great potentials for introducing concrete to students of mostly no previous experience to either pouring or building formwork - in fact building anything yet :)

Formwork tectonics

First of all, building with light weight fabric lets you produce quite large structures just because the weight of the formwork structure is kept down.

More importantly (says the teacher) there's a structural hierarchy in building fabric formwork - an apparent material dialogue to be considered. The material dialogue is between the concrete and the three elements that the formwork is made out of: the frame holding the fabric, the fabric itself, and a restraining method to keep the fabric in tension and control bulges during the pour. 

Formal consequence

When the concrete is poured as an almost ruthless matter the formwork is really put to the test. All choices made during the construction of the formwork results in a direct formal consequence on the form and surface of the concrete.

[Fabric form for the 'Clover' - without the inner form, Student work]

Formwork statics is quite an interesting subject - designing formwork structures the students get a grasp of pure tectonics. Quite simple structural principles may result in striking concrete forms :)

[The funky inner form for the Clover. Students used scrap vinyl flooring to create a smooth surface inside the bench. Student work]

Credits to the members of the Clover team who built the formwork shown above: Alva Altgård, Symra Joner Andbo, Helga Hallgrimsdottir, Rasmus von Wurstemberger Nielsen, Marie Rugholm Nielsen, Andreas Klestrup Hansen. Students study at RDAFA or DTU

The workshop was part of a course held by the Institute of Technology and co-teachers were Johannes Rauff Greisen and Finn Bach