Knitectonics

Abstract

“...techniques that operate on a material level, if we need ideas, will follow from techniques and techniques follow from matter...” - Gottfried Semper (1989).

Can a simple household craft facilitate a proto-tectonic system?

The project Knitectonics aims at exploring digital fabrication systems that facilitate optimized, adaptive and specific integrated architectural solutions (Malé-Alemany, 2009). It is inspired by the beauty of nature systems with their inherent efficiency and performance. The research explored on-site fabrication of monocoques shells, integrating skin and structure along with services and infrastructure, using a simple household technique. It thus embodies a self organized micro system of textures and a macro system of structures. This paper elaborates how the numeric aspects of a textile technique were used, first to digitally imitate the process of assembly and further exploited to develop and visualize a novel fabrication system, based on material research and technical experimentation.