Textile logic & flexibility Using the structural logic of textiles to achieve flexible structures at the architectural scale
Alice Choupeaux 4653 CITAstudio - Centre for IT and Architecture The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, January 2016
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“Imagine if a city could become a place where its fabric - walls, floors, and facades - became dynamic, where life would be reflected into the built world, and spaces could shift and change with the rhythms of the day and the seasons of the year.�
Ramsgaard Thomsen, M. - Metabolistic architectures
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Prologue
This project wants to chalenge our current idea
of inhabitation. Traditionally, buildings tend to clearly
define an outside and inside, creating an interface between uncontrolled and controlled atmospheric conditions. This interface is often expected to be strong, thick and stable1. By introducing solar panels or geothermic heating for instance,
contemporary architecture starts to query this statement
and creates buildings that use their environment, becoming
more porous to it. Philip Beesley opens a new realm that goes further in this direction. His early work on geo-textiles
suggests an architecture that would embrasse and protect
nature. Erratics Net, for instance, is a wire fabric mounted on a glacier-scoured terrain in Nova Scotia. This textileinspired network creates a “shallow film of still, sheltered
air allowing delicate growth to emerge.�2 It adapts to its surrounding as well as modifying it. Man-made structures and nature inform each other.
The building world could become closer to its
environment. The users, the architecture and the environment would inform each other, constantly adapting one another ;
like a rock erodes to construct a path to a rivulet. It rises the questions : could the architecture begin addressing the present instead of being part of the permanent ? By which means this transformation would take place ?
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Prologue
Erratics Net - Beesley 1998, Nova Scotia Philip Beesley
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Table of content
Table of content Prologue Key notions Textile logic From stability to flexibility Flexibility Time Wood
Methods of investigation & fabrication Flexibility and structural logic Flexibility and material performances Designing for material performances
Representation of textile based structure
Focus Entangled to the forest
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Key notions
Key notions
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Textile logic & Flexibility
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Key notions
Textile logic
Shukhov tower, Moscow Wikimedia Commons
conceptual framework for a new generation of structures.
Foster’s British Museum, London Foster + Partners
In architecture the study of textiles provided a
While textile structures are well understood at the scale of a traditional fabric3, what does it mean to use their logic for the built environment ?
Tension is the core concept of a textile structure.
Beesley and Hanna in their text “Lighter: a transformed architecture” define such a quality:“Instead of fixed, rigid
connections based on compression, textile structures use
tension. The binding of one fibre to the next is achieved
through the tension exerted by the immediately adjacent fibres. Rather than relying on support from the previous,
stronger member, the system is circular, holding itself in exquisite balance.” By scaling up these textile principles we
challenge the conventions of compression based building structures. From a rectilinear geometry of gravity bound
supportive structures, the study of textile systems inspires a more dynamic and circular repartition of load forces across
the building. Replacing the traditional order of primary, secondary and tertiary structures, textiles thinking introduces the notion of interdependent structures that work together.
Learning from these qualities architects and engineers, such as Eiffel, Shukhov, Ramsgaard or Beesley have created resilient skeletons and meshwork skins.
Orgone reef, Beesley Winnipeg, Manitoba - 2003 Philip Beesley Implant matrix, Beesley Toronto, Ontario - 2006 Philip Beesley
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Synergy noun The interaction or cooperation of several agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.4
Textile logic & Flexibility
From stability to flexibility
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,
intermeshed and lightweight structures have been the focus
of leading structural engineers that were looking for open and more efficient systems. But while theses structures
mainly used the load distributing qualities of the textile logic,
in 1974, Frei Otto in his project Mannheim Multihalle took advantage of flexible potential of such a network to create
a freeform gridshell. The structure was initially built on the
ground; wood slats were connected by loose intersecting nodes. The structure was then raised and formed using the flexibility of the joints. Once the freeform was defined each node was fixed giving a permanent shape to the structure.5
When the projects presented previously have a
shared goal of performing stability holding textile structures
in a fixed position, Frei Otto started introducing a notion
of dynamism. Frei Otto used friction and the extreme
interconnectivity of the textile logic to move and form the roof from its original flat shape. From a stable word, we
slowly evolve in a new dynamic dimension exploring an almost forgotten but significant property of textiles : their inherent pliability. The project has the ambition of studying and using such a quality to perform a flexible structure at the architectural scale.
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Key notions
Definition from Oxford University press dictionary Frei Otto’s Mannheim Multihalle Wikimedia commons
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Flexible adj Capable of being changed or adjusted to meet particular or varied needs.
Textile logic & Flexibility
Flexibility
Textiles have an exquisite ambivalence marrying
the pliable and the stiffened. While being flexible, they have the ability of remaining resilient to extreme forces. These
qualities are used for garments, nets and sails for instance ; objects that demand a high resistance to external constraints
while asking for suppleness. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been using these qualities for their art.
Applying these qualities to a structure at the
building scale challenges our current idea of inhabitation.
Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Karin Bech in their book Textile Logic for a soft space ask : “What would an
architecture of movement and state change suggest? ” More precisely, in their research project ‘Thaw’, they investigated
the textile concepts of tension, friction and motion at the
architectural scale. ‘Thaw’ explores the making of a weaved
structure. Made out of ash slats braced together by steel joints the structure uses friction. The structure gains its overall stiffness by playing with an interconnected net of friction based joints. This system produces weakness points
that allow the structure to be pliable and to adjust to changes in its environment or in load.6
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Key notions
Enabling the structure to perform flexibility is one
of the key point of this project. To meet this goal the project will borrow to textiles the concepts of tension and friction.
Definition from Oxford University press dictionary Christo and Jeanne- Claude Wrapped trees, 1997-98 Ocean front, 1974 Running fence, 1972-76 Christojeanneclaude.net Thaw Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech. K. - Textile Logic for a soft space, 2011
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Symbiose
noun
The living together of two dissimilar oragnisms; a relationship of mutual benefit.
Textile logic & Flexibility
Time
Thinking architectural structures using a textile
logic to become motile could give to the built environment
the opportunity to interact. As introduced earlier, traditional
buildings have a static envelope, they are built around the
core concept of a structure being stable. We conceptualise them as inert masses and picture ourselves evolving in an
environment remaining constant. However, buildings are
places that need to accommodate continual change. They evolve and move with time. Their structures slightly adapt to
exterior forces. Light, air and heat are fluctuating within their spaces.
Also, Michelle Addington presents us an architecture
that is evolving to a new focus on performances and response:
“from a formalist understanding of architectural production to one that is linked intrinsically to the material, the active and the present”7. In a larger time scale, the architecture could also adapt to its occupant activities, like a rock would
erode to construct a path to a rivulet. Accepting the continual
change of our environment and society, in this scenario the architecture would begin to actively play with time.8
Implementing as a key concept the notion of time
in this project suggests that the structure will be aware of it.
It has the ambition to adapt its movements to different forces by performing different kind of flexibility.
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Key notions
Definition from Oxford University press dictionary Growth of a tree La clé des bois, ministère de la région Wallonne ‘Stick dome home’ Andy Goldsworthy Fox Point, Nova Scotia, Canada, 10 February 1999 Song of the Earth, Cameron book, 2002 ‘It will continue to grow, except at this point’ Giuseppe Penone 1968 Song of the Earth, Cameron book, 2002
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Wood
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Key notions
bending qualities. Also, by playing with wood types and
Different kind of cut within the tronc of a tree Sculpture from Vincent Kohler 2007
different thicknesses, wood gives us a wild range of properties
to start and evolve from. The project will start investigating
Wood fibers Free image of rights
the different type of wood, picking the one that will be the
Wood graines Wood print from Martha Richter
Wood is chosen as the main material for its special
most bendable, affordable and the one that allows for easy
different types of cuts. The project has also the ambition to study wood until its micro scale to better understand how to work with and for it.
“The study of wood is best done by looking at it at
different levels of detail and there are several levels of
details to consider: macro, sub-macro, micro, sub-micro, and molecular. We recognize wood at the macro level as a tree
and this level can be broken down into two sub-categories, softwood and hardwoods. At the sub-macro level, we recognize wood as a solid board (in the rough) or as wood
furniture, windows, doors, etc. At the micro level, we study the wood cell wall and identify different elements such as
heartwood, sapwood, annual rings, etc. At the sub-micro
level, we see cell structure such as lumens, pits, vessels, ray cells, etc. Finally, at the molecular level we can study the
cell wall polymers (cellulose, lignin and hemicelluloses) and their building blocks of simple sugars, phenolic units as well as extractives structure and inorganic compounds.�9
Microstructure of the wood T. Nilsson, R. Rowell Historical wood Structure and propreties, 2012
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Methods & fabrication
Methods of investigation & Fabrication
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1:1 Structure
Several structures increasingly evolving in terms of scale and detail
Geometry
Representation
Parametric model
Scale models
How to represent a dynamic structure ? Information for fabrication
Study and drawings of textile-based systems
Paramatric model synthesising the geometry and the material performances
Material properties
Testing geometries at a reduced scale with less care on material propreties
Experimenting bending of different wood thicknesses Documenting the bending of wood slats Implenmenting data in the parametric model
Textile logic & Flexibility
Methods & fabrication
Flexibility and structural logic Flexibility and material properties
Textile systems enable the threads to reinforce each
other using a friction based structure ; also, they rely on the
pliable nature of threads. It is their inherent flexibility that permit threads to intertwine or loop around themselves. This
flexibility property is directly linked with the textile structure
chosen : different techniques demand different grades of flexibility. Rectilinear based, weave accepts threads of
great rigidity whereas techniques like knitting, crocheting
or lacing demand threads with higher degree of suppleness.
Textile manufacturing needs knowledge and control over the thread properties. A particular material’s performance is
directly linked to its crafting.10 In addition to the proprieties of the thread used, the structure gives further qualities to
the surface produced. When a weaved textile can be stiff
and unyielding, the looped logic of a knitted fabric gives it elasticity.
The structure system and the material qualities are
tightly linked in textiles. They work synergistically. When
thinking a textile logic for buildings, this interdependence
takes a great importance related to the scale. The structural system dictates the direction of load forces but the materials
absorb them. Acknowledging these parameters, the project
will engage a continual loop between geometry and material properties to aim to an evolving 1:1 structure.
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Methods of investigation Continual loop Diagram
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Methods & fabrication
Designing for material performance
How could we integrate material performances
in the way we design? Architecture is primarily a material practice, as architects we work on embodying ideas. The material choices should not follow the design process nor
being considered as the starting point, it should be parallel
and continually informing the scheme. How can computation tools allow us to apply this dynamic?
material
Part of their research inquiry : “designing for performances”,
Thomsen
and
Bench
have
implemented computation tools in the making of ‘Thaw’. The project is developed using Grasshopper, plugin of the 3D program Rhino3D. First, they measured and document
the material flex of the ash wood slats to understand it
behaviour. Then after calculating the changing relationship between length and bending, they implemented the results
in the model in order to realise a simulation of the geometric deformation of the structure.11
Including parametrisation in the word of material
performances related to architectural systems aims to
innovate structural thinking. This method helps, inter alia, to dimension the structural members aiming to a better
and more sustainable material usage in complex structural systems like textile-based structures. The project has the ambition of using these technics.
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Documentation of the wood bend ‘Thaw’ Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech. K. - Textile Logic for a soft space, 2011 Measuring bending radius Measuring multiple rattan thicknesses under variable loads Tamke, M. - Working for and with material performance, 2013
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Methods & fabrication
Representation of textile structures
Currently
the
conventions
of
architectural
representation fit the orthogonal logic of compression based
structures. To communicate the complex circularity of textile
based structures-that lay beyond the planar a new type of description is needed.
‘Shadow play’ is a project that tried in its design
process to bring what could be a solution to this challenge. In this project Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Karin Bech and
Kristjana Sigurðardóttir suggest the use of pattern-like
representation12, taking the example of the textile patterns in
weaved or knitted fabrics. These patterns are diagrammatic and aimed to clarify the logic of assembly and therefore the structural-material integrity of the resulting fabric. In weave,
the traditional “draft” diagram consists of the “threading”, the “tie-up”, and the “treadling” presenting the interlacement of the warp threads with the weft threads13. This diagram does not give any indication concerning the scale or how the final piece would look but instead brings instructions for
the fabrication. It uses a simplified model to avoid precise geometrical description that would be too complex and heavy to read for such a structural system.
The project will try to use these technics with
the additional chalenge of representing a structure that is dynamic, so changing its form constantly.
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Diagram of a weaved patern On-line digital archive of documents on weaving and related Shadow Play Fabrication data of the individual bre members varying lengths Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bench, K., Sigurðardóttir, K. Textile Logics in a Digital Architecture
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Focus
Focus
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Textile logic & Flexibility
Entangled to the forest
The structure uses the logic of textiles, borrowing
from them the concepts of tension and friction. Its members
work in synergy. The structure lives in symbiose with
its surroundings. Placed in the forest, it is changed by the seasons and the evolution of the vegetation. “When you
work with nature, you may have a general idea of what you
want to do, but nature will always suprise you with what actually happen”
The focus is on the growth of the trees. As a
flexible structure can hold itself in balance but needs more stable and stronger members to give it a shape, it will be
suspended to the branches. The structure doesn’t want to
prevent the growth of the trees, instead, via the movement of
its members, it gives it space to happen. The structure then needs different kind of flexibility. To make it simple : one
layer of the structure will follow the growth of the bigger and stronger branches, asking for stiffer and stronger members
but low density ; the other one addresses the growth of the
new and weak branches, demanding for soft and extremely flexible members disposed in a dense way. This last ones is also sensitive to the wind, embodying it to help the users
being more aware of its surrounding. The structure relates
to the present - humain time scale - as well as relating to the larger time scale of a tree’s growth.
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Focus
Het gat/The hole Floating wooden frame, willow stems Sjoerd Buisman 1995-1998 Song of the Earth, Cameron book, 2002 Knotted willow branch Sjoerd Buisman Salix alba 1975, 1978 and 1985 Song of the Earth, Cameron book, 2002
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Footnotes
From a classical point of view, permanence and solid mass are at the core of architecture. According to the ancient Roman writer Vitruvius, permanence and eternal forms are above everything else. Vitruvius - The Ten Books of Architecture 1
Beesley P. - Erratic Net, 1998, Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia in Kinetic architectures & geotextile installations, Riverside, 2010 2
Schwartz, P. - Structure and Mechanics of Textile Fibre Assemblies - Auburn University, USA, 2008 Boutrup, J. - Scales of Performance: fibres, yarns and textiles - Digital Crafting Seminar 2011 3
At the end of the 20th century, the american architect Buckminster Fuller pointed out another core aspect of textile structures : synergy. He developed this concept while working with artists at Black Montain College in North Carolina and defined it as the “behaviour of whole systems unpredicted by the behaviour of their parts taken separately”. For him, textiles are exemplary systems for architecture. By distributing the forces to an interconnected network of many threads, the risk of major damages is lowered: if one element snaps, another one is able to take over the forces. This way buildings could be able to dynamically adapt to new conditions. Hargittai, I. - Reviewed Works: A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller by Amy C. Edmondson; Buckminster Fuller’s Universe: An Appreciation by Lloyd Steven Sieden - MIT Press, 1991 4
Textile logic & Flexibility
Footnotes
Nerdinger, W. - Frei Otto: Complete Works, lightweight construction - natural design - Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität München, Base, Wirkhäuser, 2005 5
Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech. K. - Textile Logic for a soft space - KADK, CITA, 2011 6
Addington, M. - Smart Materials and Technologies - in A+U Feature Structure and Materials, 2001 7
The notion of time and rhythm that generate unstable structures is further developed by Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Karin Bench with the projects Breathing room and Slow Furl and clearly stated in their article Suggesting the Unstable : A textile Architecture. - Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bench, K. - Suggesting the Unstable : A textile Architecture in The journal of Cloth & Culture, nr. 3, p 276-289 8
Nilsson, T., Rowell, R. - Historical wood - Structure and properties - Elsevier Masson France, 2012 9
Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech, K. - Textile Logic for a soft space - KADK, CITA, 2011, p 22, p 82 10 11
Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech, K., Sigurðardóttir, K. - Textile Logics in a Digital Architecture - in New Design Concepts and Strategies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 30, p 611 to 618 12
Cook, B. - Practical Skills in Bobbin Lace - Dover Publications, 1987 13
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References
- Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech, K. - Textile Logic for a soft space - KADK, CITA, 2011 - Addington, M. - Softspace - The phenomena of the nonvisual in From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space - Routledge, London and New York, 2007 - Schwartz, P. - Structure and Mechanics of Textile Fibre Assemblies - Auburn University, USA, 2008 - Boutrup, J. - Scales of Performance: fibres, yarns and textiles - Digital Crafting Seminar 2011 - McQuaid, M. - Extreme Textiles, designing for high performances - TARGET 2005 - Hargittai, I. - Reviewed Works: A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller by Amy C. Edmondson; Buckminster Fuller’s Universe: An Appreciation by Lloyd Steven Sieden - MIT Press, 1991 - Nerdinger, W. - Frei Otto: Complete Works, lightweight construction - natural design - Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität München, Base, Wirkhäuser, 2005 - Tamle, M., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M. - Narratives of Making : thinking practice led research in architecture KADK, CITA, 2009 - Ramsgaard Thomsen, M. - Metabolistic architectures KADK, CITA, 2008
Textile logic & Flexibility
References
- Nilsson, T., Rowell, R. - Historical wood - Structure and properties - Elsevier Masson France, 2012 - Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech, K. - Suggesting the Unstable : A textile Architecture - in The journal of Cloth & Culture, nr. 3, p 276-289 - Dominique, M. - The architecture of threads - Master thesis, June 2014 - Tamke, M. - Working for and with material performance, KADK, CITA, 2013 - Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bench, K., Sigurðardóttir, K. Textile Logics in a Digital Architecture - in New Design Concepts and Strategies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 30, p 611 to 618 - Ayres, P., Tamke, M., Ramsgard Thomsen, M. - Making a Digital-Material Practice - in INPUT_OUTPUT: Performative Materials in Architecture and Design, 2012 - Gooding, M., Furlong W. - Song of the Earth - Cameron book, 2002 - Nicholas, P., Tamke, M., - Composite Territories: Engaging a bespoke material practice in digital design material KADK, CITA, 2012 - Testa, P., Weiser, D. - Material Agency in “Networed Practice - new strategies in architecture and design” - Princeton Architectural Press, 2007
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