Heavy Light - Fabric-Formed Concrete Structures

New architectural and structural forms are being produced at the Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology (CAST) through very simple construction methods that use flat sheets of fabric as formwork molds for reinforced concrete construction. This lecture will present some of the many ways in which extraordinarily beautiful and efficient architectural and structural forms can be constructed using simple tools and methods. Some of these methods promise substantial reductions in the consumption of building materials in concrete construction. All of them point towards a way of doing architecture that seeks a sufficient complexity through extraordinary simplicity.
Prof. Mark West is the founding Director of CAST, the University of Manitoba's Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology in Winnipeg Canada, and is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Manitoba's Department of Architecture and Department of Civil Engineering. His work joins the usually separate worlds of drawing, sculpture, structural design, architecture and construction, and has produced, most notably, numerous methods of forming concrete structures in flexible fabric molds.
www.umanitoba.c...
Date: Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
Time: 14.00-15.00
Place: Science City (Hönggerberg), Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 15, HIL E 3
Hosted by:
Prof. Dr. Philippe Block
Ir. Diederik Veenendaal
Assistant Chair of Building Structure
Institute of Technology in Architecture
www.block.arch....