4D-Printing Architectural Textiles

Programmable Self-Supporting Structures

by Amelia Vey Henry  

4D Printing Architectural Textiles is a collection of research, design systems, and prototypes in creating digitally fabricated self-forming and self-supporting architectural composites. The prototypes are created via direct-to-textile robotic 3D printing of thermoplastics onto flat tensioned textiles, which then warp into 3D structures upon release. By experimenting with interdependent parameters such as material and print geometry, self-forming structural warping behavior can be pre-programmed into a textile, allowing the composites to “pop-up” into structural elements. The work explores the integration of technical additive manufacturing methods in architecture with the craft, tactility, and artistic expression of textiles, to propose a new material system that is adaptable and centered around the process of making. The collection of prototypes suggests a new way of viewing textiles in architecture and asks for a reconsideration of the binary structural divide between hard and soft materials within architectural fabrication. What role can soft materials have in architecture, and how can emerging technologies and manufacturing methods allow us to challenge the way we traditionally implement these materials? 

Amelia Vey Henry is an Architect and Computational Designer researching and developing the application of 4D printed structural textiles as a new architectural material via direct-to-textile robotic 3D printing. She has previously instructed workshops in both 4D textile printing and traditional 3D printing, modeling and visualization.