In recent years, architects and engineers are seeking for alternative formation processes, as part of a general effort towards a more sustainable materialisation of complex geometries. Form and structure are developed based on the generative power of material, which is no longer regarded as passive or ideally inert and stress free. A parallel revolution in the way in which solids are described and manipulated in the field of non-linear physics, has led to new understanding of spontaneous material formations. Learning from nature, the theory of incompatible sheets was developed to describe the emergence of form and motion from intrinsic material properties through stress induced processes. Geometrical incompatibilities are prescribed in the material, making a flat ‘Frustrated Material’ that spontaneously configures itself into a predictable complex 3D shape. So far, realisations of self-shaping by material incompatibility were reduced in scale limited to delicate lab-materials. In this research we develop new frustrated materials in flexible membranes, ceramics and FRP, that can relate to an architectural scale. We demonstrate the application of principles of incompatible sheets in three frustrated materials, and show how 2D material construction self-shapes into complex shapes, opening new morphological horizons for future architectural formation processes.

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When: 2020/2021

Where: IASS annual conference , Surrey UK

With: Eran Sharon