Textile logic, Contextual data-based computation & Circular Economy
Alice Choupeaux Research booklet 3/4 Spring 2017
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CITAstudio - Centre for IT and Architecture The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
Textile logic
Content
Content Introduction to textile logic Different typology of textile logic structures Use of textile logic structure in architecture history Pliability of a textile logic structure at the architectural scale Potential for an architecture tightly connected to its environement Introducing the notion of circular architecture with focus on the component based textile structure Potential for a Holistic and Dynamic design method Representation of textiles for physical and digital models Parallel between material performances and design Dynamic and cyclic design method informed by evolving data from the context
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Textile logic
Introduction to textile logic A textile is a material consisting of a network of fibres. It is formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or felting. Depending on the type of fibre and the network-forming method used, textiles have a large range of performances, their main qualities being their flexibility, permeability and the synergy of their structural performances based on tension. Textiles are inherently highly interconnected using friction based joints to hold the fibre network together forming an interdependent circular system. These qualities are the main focus of this writing, they define a type of structure using a “textile logic” and that we call “textile structure”. A textile structure could be at any given scale, from the micro to the humain to the architectural scale, as long as its nature can be define as an interconnected interdependent circular system. Different typologies of textile logic structures The structural typology of systems using “textile logic” qualities can then be expanded and developed beyond the original friction based network of fibres. Techniques like weaving, knitting, crocheting and knotting use long and uninterrupted thread. Felting is a bit different as the process involves matting, condensing and pressing rather short fibres together. Moving from the world of yarns to other kind of material like wood or concret that cannot achieved long uninterrupted thread, construction
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Statue of Liberty’s dress structure
Textile logic
techniques evolve. Textile structure qualities can then be achieved via meshwork technique of assembling components. The flexibility could be achieved through the material performance of the main construction material or through the performances of the joins, forming structure of flexible components with stiff joints or stiff components with flexible joins. Different applications of these making/constructing techniques are given as exemples throughout the text, beginning by architectural applications, the scale of interest in this writing. Use of textile logic structure in architecture history In architecture the study of textiles provided a conceptual framework for a new generation of structures. Obviously, confronting textiles and buildings in terms of structure raises a question of scale. While textile structures are well understood at the scale of a traditional fabric, 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 principles of textiles we challenge the convention of compression based
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Shukhov tower, Moscow
Textile logic
building structures—a new tectonic, informed by material tension, emerges. 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 have created resilient skeletons, meshwork skins and, more recently, structures that are dynamically moving. The making of textiles is a very ancien craftsmanship. Dyed flax fibres were discovered in a cave in the Republic of Georgia dated to 34,000 BCE, before prehistoric times. Primitive building were being weaved with natural materials. 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. Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel’s Statue of Liberty in New York is an early example from 1886. Hidden underneath what seems a massive statue, exists a light iron framework. Using a woven technique this substructure supports the bronze cladding drapery of the dress. At the same period - late 19th, early 20th - a Russian engineer, Vladimir Shukhov, worked with weaved structures at the architectural scale. One of his iconic construction is known under the name of Shukhov
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Richard Rogers’s Channel Four headquarter
Textile logic
Tower and located in Moscow. The structure is composed of light metal lattices diagonally spun into hyperboloid drums pushed out by horizontal circular members. The weaved structure is held in tension by evenly spaced rigid rings. Shukhov developed a light weight stressed skin construction that performs as a load distributing network. For this radio tower that specific structure helps to efficiently prevent torsion in the fuselage and therefore buckling of the skin. Another kind of load distributing network is the gridshell. Shukhov used that type of structure for the roof of the pumping station in Vyksa, Russia. He created a double curvature in the shell by using curved beams to rest the steel slats on. The members of the structure are fixed against each other in a lattice work creating stiffness. Inspired by the same logic using tension and load distribution networks, curtain walls started wrapping buildings with their metal fabrics, from the beginning 20th century. In a curtain wall building, a glass cladding system creates a continuous network requiring only intermittent fastening to carry its weight. More recent projects have used this technique, for instance, Foster’s British Museum covers its courtyard with a majestic self supporting wave. Giving structural properties to the skin, OMA’s Seattle Public Library draws a tight and angled net structure around itself, when Foster’s Swiss Re Headquarter uses a helical shell structure that lumps in the middle and converges at the top. Challenging the classical paradigms of permanence Richard Rogers’s
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Foster’s British Museum
Textile logic
Channel Four headquarter in London proposes a light and agile cablenet. Assembled entirely without mullions the plates of glass of its skin are instead supported by a network of cables. The building membranes become unified meshes. Light weight and self supporting, they create complex enclosure while simultaneously performing structurally. While theses structures use 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. 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.
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Frei Otto’s Mannheim Multihalle
Textile logic
When the first projects have a shared goal of performing stability holding textile structures in a fixed position, Frei Otto and Buckminster Fuller start to introduce the notion of dynamism. Frei Otto uses friction and the extreme interconnectivity of the weaved logic to move and form the roof from its original flat shape. Buckminster talks about the ability of a textile structure to adapt to new conditions by the synergy of its members. From a stable word, we slowly evolve in a new dynamic dimension exploring an almost forgotten but significant property of textiles : their inherent pliability. Potential for pliability of a textile logic structure at the architectural scale “Textile thinking in architecture enables the invention of new tectonic principles informed by the inherent material tension that are the core concept of textile structures. Here, the frictive and the self bracing become means by which the pliable and the structural as well as the static and the actuated can meet.� 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, sails and ropes for instance ; objects that demand a hight resistance to external constraints while asking for suppleness. Applying these qualities to a structure at the building scale challenges
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Thaw by Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen
Textile logic
our current idea of inhabitation. 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 stable. Introducing the idea of motion for buildings skins is asking how our design traditions can evolve and incorporate the soft and the flexible. Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Karin Bech in their book Textile Logic for a soft space are querying this theme. They ask: “ How could architecture make use of the motile and the soft? What would an architecture of movement and state change suggest? ” Using a practice based research method, their argumentation is illustrated by a number of physical demonstrators. As one of the aim of this part is to challenge the previous one, before developing further these questions, it appears appropriate to present and develop further one precise experiment challenging the examples mentioned previously. Textile structural logic has inspired a number of architects and engineers, but how could we accommodate an architecture that wants to become dynamic and responsive stepping out of rigid structures using textile logic instead of only achieving homogeneous load distribution? Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Karin Bech, in their research project ‘Thaw’, investigated the textile concepts of tension, friction and motion at the architectural scale. ‘Thaw’ explores the making of a pleated structure. Made out of ash slats braced together by steel joints the structure uses friction. Each slat is blent into shape pressing each other, making each
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Thaw by Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen
Textile logic
single member inherently weak. 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. In addition, in this particular project, the pliable and the soft is accentuated through actuation. Servo motors are installed on top of the structure and pull the tension cables. Thanks to a diagonal relationship between the cables and the structure, tensioning the cable by 5cm has an effect of flexing the slats by 25 cm. More than moving accordingly to a change in the outside environment, ‘Thaw’ constantly re-calibrates its structural load bearing. With this investigation Thomsen and Bech show the potential of a weaved structure to become mobile through tension and friction, and also question buildings adaptability. Potential for an architecture tightly connected to its environment Thinking architectural structures using a textile logic to become motile could give to the built environment the opportunity to interact. As introduced earlier in this section, 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
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Geotextile
Textile logic
and move with time. Their structures slightly adapt to exterior forces. Light, air and heat are fluctuating within their spaces. As an example, Beesley and Hanna in their text “Lighter: a transformed architecture” enlighten the challenges caused by natural catastrophes. Cities have been destroyed by earthquakes and floods. Current buildings are not made to deal with complex forces such as the pressure of the water, the wind or the movements of an earthquake. These forces are more complex than compression in the way they behave. Buildings might use resilient structures using tension based systems to resist and accommodate them. The built environment seems eligible to work with flows and natural forces but could it actively respond to them? How would that idea define an adaptive architecture? Thomsen in the paper Metabolistic architectures suggests to “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”. 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”. In a larger time scale, the architecture could also adapt to its occupant activities and to the natural forces surrounding it, like a rock would erode to construct a path to a rivulet. Accepting the
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Geotextile
Textile logic
continual change of our environment and society, in this scenario the architecture would begin to actively play with time. Textile structures have the ability to allow a better connection to its environment via its flexibility—implying its formal adaptability—, via its potential for high specificity, via its porosity and potential for synergy with its surroundings. Geosynthetic products such as geomembrane, geotextiles, geonets, are textiles-like materials that directly adresse these aspects. These membranes, textiles or nets, when used in association with soil, have the ability to separate, filter, reinforce, protect, or drain. They work closely for and against natural forces. They are currently use to prevent soil or water pollution during construction work, to maintain soil in a steep slop or to protect land against water and wind erosion for instance. Their design requires precise calculations using fluid dynamics to assure their good performance and synergy with their surroundings. As an example, for a geotextile reinforcing a steep slope, two elements need to be calculated: the tension required for equilibrium and the appropriate layout of the geotextile reinforcement. Most of them are made of polymer derived material, made to last for a very long time without being affected by any chemical exchange that will deteriorate them. Some geonet intended to prevent erosion contain agricultural straws or coconut fibres that last for 2 to 5 years and leave the soil richer by their biodegradation. This way, as well as
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Philip Beesley’s geotextile
Textile logic
working physically with its environment, some geotextiles also engage in chemical exchange. Geosynthetic products underline the potentials of a textile to connect closely with its environment. In the context of a design-led research I developed a structure—scaled up compared to traditional geotextiles— that try to synthesise this ambition of a flexible structure that would work in symbiosis with its environnement. The project is inspired by Philip Beesley early work on geo-textiles that 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 textile-inspired network creates a “shallow film of still, sheltered air allowing delicate growth to emerge.” It adapts to its surrounding as well as modifying it. In this project man-made structures and nature inform each other, underlining the potential for building world to become closer to its environment. The project rose the questions: could the architecture begin addressing the present instead of being part of the permanent? By which means this transformation would take place? By using the structural logic of textiles, borrowing from them the concepts of tension and friction, the structure’s members become flexible, while working together in synergy. Placed in a tree, the structure is weaving with its branches, creating a symbiosis between two dynamic systems. If wind forces move the structure, due to the fact that the structure and the tree and
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Textile-inspired geometry structure - Own-work
Textile logic
Kangaroo simulation of the flexibility of ash - Own-work
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Final 1 to 1 structure - Own-work
Textile logic
tightly intertwined, the effect of the wind on the structure members ripples on the branches, the structure members then pushing the branches. The same simple phenomena can be reversed and applied to the banches to the structure. This way, after a few days, the structure changed its original place, adapting and finding a balance with the tree branches. Also the structure was partially covered with bugs, choosing this new environment upon the tree as their resting place. While creating a synergy responding to mechanical forces with the tree, the structure also became a home for insects. Compared to “Thaw”, Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Karin Bech’s project previously presented, this project is emerged in a dynamic natural environment and responds to it, whereas “Thaw” was placed in a gallery space and actuated with motors responding to artificial forces. Also, compared to a traditional geotextile, this structure uses stiffer materials and scaled up the textile principles and to achieve this, it uses the making/construction method of assembly of components, instead of using a long uninterrupted thread. Philip Beesley’s work, dealing with the same scale and principles, uses the same construction method. Different components are masse-produced and then assembled in a way that allows disassembly. This way pieces of former sculptures can be reused for new ones, also in the assembly process or later for maintenance, if one component breaks, it can be replaced really easily. This is a significant quality for a structure exposed to natural
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Textile logic
forces, allowing an extra resilience—added to its topology and material resilience—as well a possible metamorphosis by replacing one type of component with given qualities with another component with a different set of qualities, possibly following changes in the structure environment. Introducing the notion of circular architecture with focus on the component based textile structure The notion of circular architecture comes from the book Building a Circular Future which is a theorisation of a circular model for architecture including its design, construction and economic aspects. Building a Circular Future is a collaboration between multiple design and construction firms, including 3XN Architects, GXN Innovation, MT Højgaard, Kingo Karlsen, VIA, Cradle to Cradle Denmark and Henrik Innovation. “Natural resources are scarce and the construction industry accounts for approximately 40% of material and energy consumption in Europe. The new book Building a Circular Future examines what it will take to transform the building industry from its current ‘throw-away’ to a circular model. A building is usually reduced to a ‘material cemetery’ at the end of its life. We currently do not recycle all of the valuable materials contained within it, which end up lost.” From this statement, the book is given
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Textile logic
the role to develop a new circular model for the construction industry based on the reuse of materials from one building to another. The model unfolds suggesting a method of “design for disassembly”, the development of “material passeports” and a “circular economy”. In this writing will we focus on the “design for disassembly” to enrich the vision described previously of a component based structure. “Today buildings are statically welded, glued and cast together. By designing for disassembly future buildings will be flexible and function as material banks” explains Kasper Guldager Jensen senior partner at 3XN and director of GXN. The “design for disassembly” method gives direction on how to design a building so that the elements and materials can be removed from the building in the future. Materials -Choose materials with properties that ensure they can be reused. Quality -Use materials of a high quality that can handle several life cycles. Healthy -Use nontoxic materials to provide a healthy environment — now and in the future. Pure -Use as pure materials as possible, which can recycled with ease. Service Life -Design the building with the whole lifetime of the building in mind.
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Reuse
Deconstruction
Standards
Connections
Materials
Service Life
Textile logic
Layers -Make the long lasting building elements flexible, so the short lasting elements can be easily changed. Flexibility -Make a flexible building design that allows the functions to adapt and change in the future. Interim -Think of the building as a temporary composition of materials and design with the preservation of material value in mind. Standards -Design a simple building that fits into a ‘larger context’ system. Modularity -Use modular systems where elements easily can be replaced. Prefabrication -Use prefabricated elements for a quicker and more secute assembly and disassembly. Components -Create a component when the composition of elements becomes too complex to handle.
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Textile logic
Connections -Choose reversible connections that can tolerate repeated assembly and disassembly. Accessible -Make the connection accessible in order to minimize assembly and disassembly time. Mechanical -Use mechanical joints for easy assembly and disassembly without damaging the materials. Dissolvable -Avoid binders, but if necessary, use binders that are dissolvable. Deconstruction -As well as creating a plan for construction, design the building for deconstruction. Strategy -Create a simple plan for deconstruction, to ensure a quick and easy disassembly process. Stability -Make sure that stability in the building is maintained during deconstruction. Environment -Ensure that the deconstruction plan is respectful to the nearby buildings, people and nature.
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Textile logic
Also, the immediate gains described in the book, resonate with the previously described avantages of using components : “Because the product is easier to assemble, it is simpler and cheaper to produce. Because the product can be easily disassembled, it is easier to remove things that are broken and repair them, change or upgrade outdated technology, making it easier and cheaper to maintain and operate. When a broken part is removed, it can be disassembled into all its smaller components, enabling all of the parts to be up-cycled to new products in the best possible way� This guidelines align with the idea of a component based textile structure, enriching the vison with a lager scope concerning any kind of structure and with essential environmental concerns that dialogues directly with the worry of the structure to be directly connected to its environment, respecting it and working with it. Production, maintenance, recycling and adaptability are made easier and as good for the environment than it is for the design itself. The aspect that the book isn’t describing about this method is the possibility for dynamic adaptation of the building structure to its environment. If the structure is made out of components using a material and a design that confer every each of them a particular quality in direct relation with its immediate surrounding, then if this latest change and evolve, it can be very easy to replace the actual component with a different one with different qualities. This process allow a dynamic
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Textile logic
adaptation of the structure to its surroundings including weather conditions, change of soil condition, mouvement of soil, change of flora or fauna; introducing a new type of architecture, less permanent and allowing change. A nomadic tribes in the coastal regions of Southeast Asia, the Badjao, already uses such a principle. Stateless people with no nationality and no consistent infrastructure, they live on the ocean—with the ocean— and sometimes kilometres away from the shore. Living in such a naturally tumultuous place, they learned to adapt to its every whim, leading them to design and build homes that can de disassembled, redesign and reassembled without loose of resources. When a storm hits a community, a common effort is developed and a global gathering of material coming from their own home in achieved in order to reinforced damaged homes. With such a behaviour they teach us that fragility can be strength for adaptation and harmony with our environment, in contradiction with the global tendance of privileging strong and permanent building fighting with the elements. Potential for a Holistic and Dynamic design method Holistic design method The notion of adaptation, creating direct connections between the building and its environment, implies the use of a holistic design method. Working with this approach means to emphasise the importance
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of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. Designing this way would consider the structure’s geometry, the materials, the users, and the surroundings at the same time, going from one to another in an uninterrupted ballet. They would all influence each other, they should work together. Textiles use that logic. In The architecture of threads, Matilda Dominique talks about it : “It begins with one thread. As the yarns intersect, a woven universe takes form; one that gives the material its visual, tactile and functional uniqueness.” From a thread we obtain a surface. Choosing the quality of this thread and by structuring it in a particular way, we give to the textile its visual, tactile and resistance qualities. Qualities decided according to its future use. At the architectural scale, this loop has to be considered. To a specific use and environment, the right structure achieving specific performances should be developed. Structure that has to be directly linked to the quality of the material. Therefore, the complexity and flexibility of textile inspired structures ask to be articulated with the right material performances. More specifically, 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
Textile logic
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. 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 have to work synergistically. When thinking a textile logic for the built environment, this interdependence takes a great importance related to the scale. The structural system dictates the direction of load forces but the materials absorb them. Moreover, in a mobile structure, these properties should be thought in a dynamic setup. A material doesn’t have the same properties from one type of blend to another. As material properties are highly linked to the structure in textiles, thinking evolving material performances is essential for moving structures. In Thaw for instance, the motion of the structure continually change the state of the material flex. Therefore, creating a virtual model to enable a control of these parameters was needed before the realisation. The material properties of ash had to be implemented in the design process to perform in the right way once existing in the physical world. Computational tools plays a significant role in the making of flexible structures.
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Textile logic
Representation of textiles for physical and digital models Currently the conventions of architectural representation fit the orthogonal logic of compression based structures. Thought plans and sections architects and engineers share design intents and construction systems. To communicate the complex circularity of textile based structures-that lay beyond the planar-a new type of description is needed. To suggest how to represent in order to design, simulate and fabricate a dynamic textile structure we will describe and analyse different representation methods in the field of physical textile production, digital textile modelling/simulation and design practice representation methods, using the design practice Philip Beesley architect INC and ‘Shadow play’ & ‘Thaw’ by Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Karin Bech and Kristjana Sigurðardóttir as study cases. Weaved and knitted fabrics use pattern-like representation for their fabrication. 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 (vertical) warp threads with the (horizontal) weft threads. This diagram do not gives 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.
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Textile logic
In the digital world, and more precisely in 3D modelling program and game engine, textiles are represented as surfaces or meshes. If 3D modelling uses either surfaces or meshes, simulation programs and game engines use mainly meshes as they need a finite amount of coordinates to apply any of their calculation. A mesh is a polygonal or polyhedral digital net that approximates a geometric domain by breaking it down into a grid of reference points and edges. For textiles in the digital world, meshes are mainly used to help simulating textile behaviour using a range of parameters about the textile itself and about the environmental conditions. Philip Beesley architect INC is a design practice that works with textile like structure, designing interactive sculptures consisting of a based scaffold enriched with interactive systems using sensors, motors and LED. The study of the representation they use during they design process will give us a base of how to find the balance between a new type of structure and traditional representation. * During the development of the design : - Sketches - Scale & Scaffold system - giving the size of the base grid = referred to backing in embroidery - More or less detailed depending on the scale of the scale of the drawing
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Textile logic
- Detail drawings of connections of elements in the scaffold - Diagrammatic simplified drawing ( outlines of the components with location of connections ) RCP = base scaffold - Several layers that interface with the scaffold : - Structural elements ( interface the scaffold with the surrounding space ) - Micro processors / cabeling - Active mechanisms - Inactive dressing = 2 ways of representing them : - icons on general scaffold ( composition ) - detail drawings contextualised Goals : - Determining the structure - Composition of the aesthetic experience ( feeling for it ) ( coupled with detail drawing of the overall ) - Composition of the location of connections between the different components - Assembly plan ( use of the grid with alphabetic and number reference ( A6, G7 ‌ ) ) - Overall scaled drawings (level of detail higher than the simplified drawing )
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Textile logic
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Textile logic
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Goals : - Clearer interconnections and space taking of components more than just location - Overall form of the sculpture in section - Idea of the aesthetic of the sculpture - Component detail drawings / braking it down in scale Goals : -Lasercut shape -Cut sheets -Detailed connections with other components ( plan and section) -Fabrication / assembly techniques * Exhibition : -2D detailed drawings of component systems -2D detailed drawings of composition * 3D : -Good for complex compositions -Complex assembly in assembly -Conflict between 3D modelling and physical fabrication ( Philip practice can build the components ( not like buildings in architecture ) so you might as well do it physical -Augmented reality
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Textile logic
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Shadow Play by CITA
Textile logic
‘Shadow play’ is a project that tried in its design process to bring what could be a solution to the challenge of reprinting textile structure. This project was developed by Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Karin Bech and Kristjana Sigurðardóttir for the exhibition “Transformative Textiles” at the Architecture House in Copenhagen. The installation is a pine wood light filter creating shadows at the entrance space of the Architecture House. Primarily investigating ways of encoding and describing material behaviour for architectural structures, it is also questioning the methods of communication of such a textile-based structure. Thomsen, Bech and Sigurðardóttir are introducing Testa and Weiser’s work to introduce their argumentation. They are stating that Testa and Weiser’s drawings result in geometric representation, but they notice that their underlying computational logic relies on the relation of the individual agents. Following this concept, they suggest the use of pattern-like representation, taking the example of the textile patterns in weaved or knitted fabrics. ‘Shadow play’ hybridises these diagrams with traditional architectural projection. “On the one hand the model exists as a three dimensional representation outlining the size and shape of the structure and allowing the evaluation of the design proposition while on the other hand the model diagrams the material connectivity of the three dimensional weave structure. The model is as such both directly architectural as well as a tool for understanding material composition in the installation.”
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Textile logic
Directly informing these models, ‘Shadow Play’ also considers implementing material behaviour in the process ; enlightening the fact that the role of computation could be extended from its primary role of modelling a form. Parallel between material performances and design We have underlined earlier the importance to have an oversight on material behaviour in the design process of a structure using a textile logic - a parametrisation of material performances implemented in the model could help us to better understand and control the form and behaviour of the structure. This idea brings us to ask 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? Part of their research inquiry : “designing for material 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 [fig14]. Then after calculating the changing relationship between length and
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Google Earth
Image Trace
Image Sampler
Textile logic
bending, they implemented the results in the model in order to realise a simulation of the geometric deformation of the structure. Including parametrisation in the word of material performances related to architectural systems aims to innovate structural thinking. Considering structures as a network of members that pass forces between them, computational tools model forces and flow according to material properties. 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. Dynamic and cyclic design method informed by evolving data from the context The development of computational tools will help the design and fabrication of the component based textile structure informed by site specific data and physical experimentation. This aspect of the project is experimental. The method used and the tools created will shift and change throughout the design process to better fit its goals. Based on primary experimentations and investigations, an agent based mesh segmentation seems to be a valid method to pursue. Suggested methods at the time of writing for the design: a first color analysis of satellite pictures will be made to identify different types of flora; then, within the model the different membranes and layers of the
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PARAMETRIC MODEL
Associating types of components to types of plants
=
Textile logic
textile-like structure will be represented by meshes refined and specified via agent behaviour according to specific aspects of the context (plants, animals, climatic conditions, geometry, programmatic locations). One mesh subdivision would represent one component of the structure. For fabrication, algorithms will help unfolding the structure to draw and understand their composition and position within the overall structure. Seeing these methods as a loop to repeat every season, the overall algorithm will be able to adjust the design of the component-based structure to changes that happen on site (migration of a plant, extra erosion for instance), pointing out components to be removed, replaced, or produced. This method highlights a new concept of a “dynamic� architecture that allows architecture to be continually updated. The role of the architect then becomes continuous, requiring them to follow their projects throughout their life.
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Erroded
Pathway
Implementing design intentions and structural principles PARAMETRIC MODEL
Textile logic
Pathway
menting design intentions and structural principles PARAMETRIC MODEL
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Density
Before geotextile
Exchanging/reusin component
After geotextile Different colonisation of the plants
Automatically exchanging and reusing component types as t PARAMETRIC MODEL
Textile logic
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Before geotextile
Exchanging/reusing components
After geotextile tion of the plants
Automatically exchanging and reusing component types as the nature is changing PARAMETRIC MODEL
Textile logic
Own research for a component based textile logic structure
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Component experiment
Textile logic
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Tilling experiment
Textile logic
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Textile logic
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Dressing experiment
Textile logic
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Tilling studies
Textile logic
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Revolution patterns TILING SYSTEM
Textile logic
Revolution patterns TILING SYSTEM
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Join study
Textile logic
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References - Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech, K. - Textile Logic for a soft space KADK, CITA, 2011 - Beesley, P - Kinetic architectures and geotextile instalations Riverside Architectural Press, 2010 - Stankievech, C. - Sewing/Sowing: Cultivating Responsive Geotextiles - in Kinetic architectures and geotextile instalations - McQuaid, M. - Extreme Textiles, designing for high performances TARGET 2005 - Braungart, M., McDonough, W. - Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things - North Point Press, 2002 - Guldager Jensen, K., Sommer, J. - Building a Circular Future - The Danish Architectural Press, 2016 - Jacobson, J. - Nomadic people: the Badjao - in Neo nomad, archiectural thesis from Pratt Institute, 2016 - Schwartz, P. - Structure and Mechanics of Textile Fibre Assemblies Auburn University, USA, 2008 - Nerdinger, W. - Frei Otto: Complete Works, lightweight construction - natural design - Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität München, Base, Wirkhäuser, 2005
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- 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 - Burry, M. - Scripting Cultures, Architectural design and programming - AD Primers - John Wiley & Sons, 2011 - Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Bech, K. - Suggesting the Unstable : A textile Architecture - in The journal of Cloth & Culture, nr. 3, p 276-289 - 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 - Gooding, M., Furlong W. - Song of the Earth - Cameron book, 2002
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