Traditional Japanese shoji are sliding doors made of washi paper supported by wood crosspieces. The paper offers privacy and protection from wind but requires the lattice structure for support. For the Takeo Corporation’s Haptic exhibition, Japanese architect and materials researcher Hiroshi Ota set out to rethink the traditional Japanese architectural feature. After researching the Japanese papermaking technique called kami-suki (paper-scooping), Ota hypothesized that it would be possible to make self-supporting paper screens.
Ota formed a stainless-steel screen with a dimensional basket weave–type pattern using a rolling press. He molded two sheets of paper with this screen and attached them together after allowing them to dry. Once paired in this way, the paper sheets formed a truss capable of supporting its own weight and functioning as furniture. Although Japanese washi is typically appreciated for its lightness and delicacy, here Ota has used the paper to create stability and strength in a new sliding door. [Contact:
Hiroshi Ota, Tokyo, Japan.]
Labels: 12, door, paper, screen, ultraperforming
Shanghai Kang Yu Jie Sen's Cast Glass Façades exhibit superior clarity, the highest refractive index of any architectural glass, and are suitable for use in interior or exterior applications. Cast Glass Façades are superior to stone in terms of weather resistance, staining, and background radiation. The product can be worked similar to float glass by bending, tempering, and laminating. The glass can be cast to achieve sharp lines as well as soft organic shapes, and the thickness allows for sophisticated multidimensional effects as well as a variety of color possibilities. [Contact:
Kang Yu Jie Sen, Shanghai, China.]
Labels: 08, facade, glass, ultraperforming
The Concrete Canvas Shelter is a rapidly deployable hardened shelter that requires only water and air for erection. It can be deployed by two people without any training in approximately thirty minutes and is ready to use in twelve hours. The shelter consists of a cement-impregnated fabric (Concrete Cloth) bonded to the outer surface of an inflatable plastic inner structure.
Prior to construction, the shelter is delivered folded in a sealed plastic sack. Once the sack is positioned and filled with water, the fiber matrix wicks water into the cement, naturally controlling the water-to-cement ratio. The sack is cut open after hydration, and a battery-driven fan inflates the inner plastic lining, causing the structure to lift. After a duration of twelve hours, the concrete will have set sufficiently for use.
The fibers of the Concrete Canvas fabric form a coherent matrix within the concrete, providing tensile reinforcement and helping prevent crack propagation. If desired, the shelter can be buried with over 0.5 meters of sand on the roof in order to provide increased insulation and protection. [Contact:
Peter Brewin, Northampton, UK.]
Labels: 13, concrete, shelter, ultraperforming
Accoya is a high performance solid wood that is modified by a proprietary process called acetylization. This technique increases the amount of acetyl molecules, which are naturally present in all species of wood, throughout the material (not just at the surface). Acetylization delivers exceptional performance attributes, including Class 1 durability, reduced swelling and shrinkage, mold and insect resistance, UV-degradation resistance, and reduced thermal conductivity. Because of these factors, Accoya is appropriate for use in more rigorous conditions, such as heavy-traffic road bridges. The product is also sourced from sustainable forests, is 100 percent recyclable, and is nontoxic. [Contact:
Titan Wood Limited, London, UK.]
Labels: 06, acetylization, ultraperforming, wood
Backlight is a demonstration of electroless metal plating by Tony Wurman of New York–based Wunderwurks. In contrast to conventional electrolytic processes, electroless plating uses a nongalvanic chemical plating method involving multiple reactions in an aqueous solution without external electrical power. Electroless plating can provide decorative and protective finishes for many materials, including metal, wood, glass, plastic, stone, fiberglass, ceramics, and even fabrics.
Wurman's gold-plated light sculpture of a human spine cast in urethane resin demonstrates that the electroless process is highly cost effective compared to conventional electroplating and vacuum metallizing and is not limited to the item’s size, design, or surface characteristics. Moreover, the electroless-plated object's finished surface will accept conventional paints to enable striping, accenting with graphics, or airbrushing. [Contact:
Coat of Chrome, Wind Gap, PA;
Wunderwurks, New York, NY.]
Labels: 05, metal, process, ultraperforming
Advantic is a syntactic foam made by mixing or combining hollow glass microspheres with an epoxy resin. This high-strength composite solves many of the problems associated with other common tooling materials. Cornerstone Research Group (CRG) Industries’s proprietary mixing process minimizes the number of microspheres that break during mixing, a common problem in manufacturing syntactic materials. This process enables Advantic to maintain low density with high uniformity and minimum void content.
Because Advantic is lightweight, it reduces wear and tear on machining equipment. It also has low thermal conductivity and specific heat, so it requires little warm-up time and virtually eliminates plug sticking during thermoforming. Advantic is dimensionally stable and will keep its shape over a wide range of temperatures. The material can also be machined using standard carbide-tipped tools in sheet-fed, rotary, or in-line machines for a variety of applications.
Advantic is available in small or large lots of customized material with custom properties. CRG Industries can customize properties such as compressive strength, flexure strength, material density, operational temperature, chemical resistance, electrical properties, thermoconductivity, water absorption, and surface finish. [Contact:
CRG Industries, Dayton, OH.]
Labels: 06, foam, glass, material, ultraperforming
CarbonCast is a precast-concrete technology that uses a carbon-fiber grid for secondary reinforcing or shear transfer, depending on the application. Because carbon-fiber reinforcing resists corrosion, CarbonCast precast products require less concrete cover, resulting in added durability, lighter weight, and improved sustainability over traditional precast concrete. In addition, the reduction of concrete enables the integration of insulation, which can increase R-values of wall panels.
CarbonCast architectural cladding panels can weigh up to 66 percent less than conventional precast panels. This weight reduction permits engineers to reduce substructure or specify smaller cranes for lifting the panels into place. When used in the flanges of CarbonCast pretopped double tees, the carbon-fiber grid can reduce weight by 12 percent and eliminate the need for sealers and sacrificial barrier coatings. When used as a shear connector in CarbonCast high performance insulated wall panels, the carbon-fiber grid improves thermal performance, given its relatively low thermal conductivity. [Contact:
Altus Precast, Lancaster, PA]
Labels: 03, carbon fiber, concrete, reinforcing, ultraperforming
Michelin has developed an integrated tire and wheel combination missing one ingredient that is vital for traditional tire performance – air. The "Tweel" is comprised of a deceptively simple looking hub and spoke design that replaces the need for air pressure while delivering performance previously only available from pneumatic tires. The flexible spokes are fused with a flexible wheel that deforms to absorb shock and rebound with ease. Without the air needed by conventional tires, Tweel still delivers pneumatic-like performance in weight-carrying capacity, ride comfort, and the ability to "envelope" road hazards.
Michelin has also found that it can tune Tweel performances independently of each other, which is a significant change from conventional tires. As a result, vertical stiffness (which primarily affects ride comfort) and lateral stiffness (which affects handling and cornering) can both be optimized, pushing the performance envelope in these applications and enabling new performances not possible for current inflated tires. The Tweel prototype, demonstrated on the Audi A4, is within five percent of the rolling resistance and mass levels of current pneumatic tires. That translates to within one percent of the fuel economy of the OE (Original Equipment) fitment. Additionally, Michelin has increased the lateral stiffness by a factor of five, making the prototype unusually responsive in its handling. [via Michelin; suggested by Ken Ranucci, Boynton Beach, FL]
Labels: dematerialization, rubber, tire, ultraperforming
Traditional Japanese shoji are sliding doors made of washi paper supported by wood crosspieces. The paper offers privacy and protection from wind but requires the lattice structure for support. For the Takeo Corporation’s Haptic exhibition, Japanese architect and materials researcher Hiroshi Ota set out to rethink the traditional Japanese architectural feature. After researching the Japanese papermaking technique called kami-suki (paper-scooping), Ota hypothesized that it would be possible to make self-supporting paper screens.
