It has become clear over the last decade that the building industry must rapidly change to meet globally pressing requirements. The strong links between climate change and the environmental impact of architecture mean an urgent necessity for alternative design solutions. In order to propose them in this project, two emergent fabrication techniques were deployed with natural fiber-reinforced polymers (NFRPs), namely tailored fiber placement (TFP) and coreless filament winding (CFW). The approach is explored through the design and prototyping of a stool, as an analogue of the functional and structural performance requirements of an architectural system. TFP and CFW technologies are leveraged for their abilities of strategic material placement to create high-performance differentiated structure and geometry. Flax fibers, in this case, provide a renewable alternative for high-performance yarns, such as carbon, glass, or basalt. The novel contribution of this project is exploring the use of a TFP preform as an embedded fabrication frame for CFW. This eliminates the complex, expensive, and rigid molds that are traditionally associated with composites. Through a bottom-up iterative method, material and structure are explored in an integrative design process. This culminates in a lightweight FlexFlax Stool design (ca. 1 kg), which can carry approximately 80 times its weight, articulated in a new material-based design tectonic.

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This research demonstrates an integrative computational design and fabrication workflow for the production of surface-active fibre composites, which uses natural fibres, revitalises a traditional craft, and avoids the use of costly molds. Fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) are highly tunable building materials, which gain efficiency from fabrication techniques enabling controlled fibre direction and placement in tune with load-bearing requirements. These techniques have evolved closely with industrial textile processes. However, increased focus on automation within FRP fabrication processes have overlooked potential key benefits presented by some lesser-known traditional techniques of fibre arrangement. This research explores the process of traditional bobbin lace-making and applies it in a computer-aided design and fabrication process of a small-scale structural demonstrator in the form of a chair. The research exposes qualities that can expand the design space of FRPs, as well as speculates about the potential automation of the process. In addition, Natural Fibre-Reinforced Polymers (NFRP) are investigated as a sustainable and human-friendly alternative to more popular carbon and glass FRPs.

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