Our latest research entitled SELF-SHAPING TEXTILES – A material platform for digitally designed, material-informed surface elements, in collaboration with Dr. Lorenzo Guiducci (Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Cluster of Excellence at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) has been published at the eCAADe 2020 conference.

Full paper is available here.

BIO DATA / BIO TECTONICS FOR ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

SELF-SHAPING TEXTILES – a material platform for digitally designed, material-informed surface elements

Keywords: self-shaping textiles, material form-finding, wrinkling, surface instabilities, bio-inspired design, leaf morphogenesis

Abstract: Despite the cutting edge developments in science and technology, architecture toa large extent still tends to favor form over matter by forcing materials into predefined, often superficial geometries, with functional aspects relegated tomaterials or energy demanding mechanized systems. Biomaterials research has instead shown a variety of physical architectures in which form and matter are intimately related (Fratzl, Weinkamer, 2007). We take inspiration from the morphogenetic processes taking place in plants’ leaves (Sharon et al., 2007),where intricate three-dimensional surfaces originate from in-plane growth distributions, and propose the use of 3D printing on pre-stretched textiles (Tibbits, 2017) as an alternative, material-based, form-finding technique. We 3D print open fiber bundles, analyze the resulting wrinkling phenomenon and use itas a design strategy for creating three-dimensional textile surfaces. As additive manufacturing becomes more and more affordable, materials more intelligent and robust, the proposed form-finding technique has a lot of potential for designing efficient textile structures with optimized structural performance and minimal usage of material.

Kycia A., Guiducci L. (2020): Self-shaping textiles – a material platform for digitally designed, material-informed surface elements, Werner, L and Koering, D (eds.), Anthropologic: Architecture and Fabrication in the cognitive age – Proceedings of the 38th eCAADe Conference – Volume 2, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 16-18 September 2020, pp. 21-30 @ eCAADe2020, ISBN: 978-9-49120-721-1 (Volume 2)