Concrete Lattice seeks to challenge our normative association with this building typology by developing a lattice system using glass fiber-reinforced concrete, or GFRC, as the primary material. Thin lattice structures are porous, lightweight, and deployable; terms that are not typically associated with concrete architecture. The design of variable units rather than linear components, typical of lattice systems, allows the project to focus on the assembly of prefabricated units using integrated component details. By employing the use of PETG as a folded formwork, our goal was to explore the mass-customization of units to be flat-packed and deployed on site.

Extending from the work of Maciej Kaczynski from his 2013 project, Crease, Fold, Pour, our use of PETG for formwork is similar with regards to how it utilizes folding for form finding and structuring critical moments in the mold. We deviate from Kaczynski’s work in the process of casting, from cast-in-place to prefabricated units. Prefabricated casting grants us the ability to cast in a controlled environment as well as allowing us to begin investigating the logics behind mass customization and production. The design of our lattice system investigates part to whole assemblies and biomimetic systems of formal and structural logics by using parametric digital methods.

Many material properties have come into play within our system, and we intend to test each one by controlling certain variables and producing iterations in both the design and the process. While PETG has proven inherently unstable and liable to cracking, folding techniques and seam locations produce origami patterns across the formwork and provide stability. An external jig is still necessary to both support the cast and ensure accuracy and precision. The jig design is reconfigurable to account for various parameters within both the unit design and the system itself, responding to feedback between computation, design, fabrication, and casting.

As a making studio, prototyping provides necessary feedback into our formwork design and parametric modeling script. Each iteration of the unit involves the development of an adjustable jig, which accounts for the variability within numerous unit types. While the prefabricated unit serves as a model for the scalar versions of itself to proliferate, the parameters of each unit also determine how it can aggregate. Methods for aggregation then, represent a typology of spatial conditions possible within the system. Any built work must negotiate social, political, and natural environments by engaging the opportunities and constraints inherent in its context. Concrete Lattice is situated within a discourse dating back to primitive architecture, the human scale and basic properties of enclosure. Simultaneously, extra-disciplinary conversations around fabrication and technology’s role in architecture connect the problem of inhabitation to a contemporary mode of design and making.