Tutor: Matthias Leschok

Fabric is a soft material commonly used in construction for its ability to be tensiled. It has been utilized from the 18th century to the present day in the field of industrialised construction in combination with steel cables or other rigid materials.Textile is often used to form tents, stadiums, or pavilions. Additive Manufacturing (AM) has already demonstrated its potential in architecture. Especially polymer extrusion has been used not only for creating formwork for concrete, but also facades components. However, for architecture this AM process is struggling with long built-up rates. There are first attempts to combine polymer extrusion with a substrate material (Add-on 3DP) for faster build-up rates, especially necessary for the architecture scale. Nevertheless, the use of substrate material like fabric has not been fully explored yet.

This research aims to combine a rigid material - the 3D printing material - with a soft material - the fabric - to create spatial elements of architectural size. It provides experimental data on the behaviour of the new composite material, as well as a different design approach to create spatial architectural elements.