Soft Cast

soft cast

Tailoring Architecture: exploring patterning to challenge our concepts of permanence in deployable architectures.

Soft Cast delves into the ways form comes into being. Through feedback and simulation, we have been developing a soft architectural system that creates a close connection between materials, computation, and form. The main focus of this research is to explore textiles as a fully patterned system that is lightweight, performance-oriented, and can be deployed in extreme environments. The research specifically examines onsite materiality that can be augmented through patterning express and activate materials in the formational process. 

Pattern dynamics provide a way to investigate a transformative and adaptable responsive system. This exploration occurs by considering various scales and environmental conditions. The goal is to create a system that can restructure itself dramatically. It starts as a soft, tensile-based framework and has the potential to evolve into a semi-permanent or permanent load-bearing structure, capable of being cast in different forms. Use cases such as post-disaster scenarios are the main driver of research. 

Soft Cast was applied in an artistic intervention within Norway's rugged Fjord landscapes. The concept involves a harmonious integration with the landscape, featuring a series of spatial designs that blend seamlessly into this challenging environment. These spaces are conceived as inhabitable sculptures that are patterned and formed to be responsive to the environment. Scaled prototypes of Soft Cast are in the permanent collection of the Frac Centre-Val de Loire