Building the Ethereal

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Background: This research explores architecture from the scale of the body to the scale of buildings and how we use material qualities to drive the form rather than form driving material. The research looks to disciplines such as fashion and textile design and how they work with the form of the body to capture forms in creating a drape, or a pleat. By simulating these qualities digitally, we can speculate on how these non-architectural beginnings can result in extraordinary spatial qualities where the work has been incrementally scaled up to resolve issues of structure, form and enclosure.
Contribution: ‘Building the Ethereal’ is a series of 7 3D polymer printed models. The works add to knowledge in the field of architecture because they act as evidence of digital scripts I have developed that automate the fashion technique of pleating. While scripting is now widely used, adopting and mimicking the way materials behave when pleated and then producing results that are possible at the scale of architecture is unique knowledge and is significant in the field of architecture and shows an alternative way of designing for fashion where manual processes are still the norm. It is this contribution that has been acknowledged by their inclusion in this exhibition. The research advances the intersection between architecture, fashion and textile design and how this nexus is rich territory for the investigation of fabrication techniques foreign to architecture but useful in the development of an intricate architecture.
Significance: ‘Building the Ethereal’ was exhibited at the peer-reviewed Annual Design Research conference. The exhibition accompanied the academic conference. Other works included were by renowned academic researchers such as Roland Snooks, Jane and Mark Burry.