Abstract
Concrete is one of the most common building materials in Singapore today, often used to fabricate basic architectural components such as floors, walls, columns and beams. As a fl uid material, concrete has the potential to take on many forms. However, they are generally cast into orthogonal modules,bounded by the needs for effi ciency and economical formwork . As architects and designers like us begin to grasp the wide possibilities of digital and parametric modelling, traditional casting methods may no longer be suitable for such designs. Current industrial casting of concrete revolves about repetitive, serial production methods where concrete is treated as an inert, passive recipient of form imposed by the rigid formwork it is released into. On the other hand, development of fl exible, tensile and lightweight formworks allow the materiality of concrete to have some control over the resultant form and engage in the forming process. As a casted material, there is close relationship between concrete and its mold where the resultant cast takes on not just the form of the mold, but also the materiality of the mold itself. In the case of fabric formwork, the textile and the concrete it holds negotiates between hydrostatic and tensile forces to create a final form. Taking into consideration current trends in parametric modeling, and the need for adaptable, sustainable manufacturing methods of geometry not possible by 3D printing, the aim for this thesis is to explore the architectural potentials of stitching planar fabric as boundary constraints for concrete formwork, through physical and digital form-finding methods to allowcasting of a family of geometries, maintaining the architect’s freedom of expression for designs parametrically modeled.