BRANCHING STRUCTURES

cast from
at fabric sheet molds
NEW METHODS FOR ARCHITECTURAL AND STRUCTURAL CONCRETE FROM C.A.S.T.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBAS CENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES AND TECHNOLOGY
by Mark West
BRANCHING STRATEGIES
Branching structures are one of Natures favorite tricks
for efciently distributing matter. Human constructions,
while fundamentally different in many ways from those
of Nature, can also partake of the elegance, efciency,
and physical beauty offered by this essential spatial/
structural strategy. For example, spreading columns
can reduce the span of the beams they support. Since
the bending work of a beam increases with the square
of its span, even a small reduction in span can offer
geometrically increased reductions in bending forces.
More efcient or optimal force paths can also be traced
through branching lines of support. The penchant for
constructing rectilinear structures is a product of our
tools, rigid materials, and (building) culture rather than
a rational response to purely structural imperatives.
This document describes ways of constructing branch-
ing reinforced concrete structures in molds made from
exible at sheets of fabric
A at membrane can be naturally buckled to form gures that enclose three dimensional volumes.
The photograph above, taken from the Institute for Lightweight Structures publication ILS 25, pg 2-80
(1990), shows a at fabric sheet buckled into series of Y-shaped branching gures. The ILS looked
at this phenomenon as a problem to be understood and solved (they were hunting for non-buckled,
smooth shapes). These naturally occurring forms, however, can be used to construct simple fabric
molds for branching cast concrete structures using at fabric sheet molds.
Bottom Left: a at fabric sheet buckled into parallel ridges by pushing the sheet together from the top
and bottom only - what we call a one-way push-buckle.
Bottom Middle: a fabric sheet buckled into Y-shaped branching volumes by pushing the sheet together
simultaneously from both top-bottom and left-right - what we call a two-way push-buckle.
Bottom Right: Construction of a fabric formwork mold using a two-way push-buckle induced in a at
sheet of woven polyethylene geotextile material.
BRANCHING PATTERNS FROM BUCKLED FABRIC SHEETS
The small -scale (30cm tall) model shown Below illustrates the basic formwork method for a branching
column utilizing the Bulge-Wall method developed at C.A.S.T. [for a full description of the bulge wall
method, see the PDF document Bulge Wall available at: www.umanitoba.ca/cast_building/resources].
These small models use light nylon fabric and plaster to develop construction methods and details for
full-scale construction using powerful industrial fabrics and concrete.
A view of the inside surface of the mold model, showing the
two facing at fabric sheets let into the Y-shaped voids pro-
vided by the plywood cut-outs.
This is a view of the two outside faces of the mold model.
The branching gure cut out of the plywood panels will de-
termine the prole of the cast Y-shaped column.
This photo shows the mold model assembled and lled with
plaster, modeling a cast-in-place concrete column form.
As the lines of bulging fabric forming the trunk and two branches join at the crotch of the column form,
the amount of fabric bulging outwards is increased at this point. The photos (Below) show two methods
of reducing the volume of concrete at this crucial point in the mold: Left Below and Centre Below show
how a rod (ex. a steel rebar) can be used to push the excess fabric inwards at the crotch. Right Below
shows the fabric pulled together in a line of sewn tucks that reduce bulging in this location.
FLAT SHEET MOLD METHOD
Two facing at sheets of fabric are buckled into a branch-
ing gure, allowing them to bulge outwards through open-
ings cut in the plywood sheets on either side of a wall mold.
Left Above: The Y-shaped prole of the column has been cut out of a modied plywood wall form.
Centre Above: A at sheet of geotextile fabric is smoothed and stretched into the Y-shaped void.
Right Above: The fabric is stapled to the plywood along the edges of the Y-shaped opening.
Left Below: The modied plywood wall formwork ready to receive concrete
Right Below: The formwork after it is lled with concrete.
CONSTRUCTION OF A THREE-METRE BRANCHING COLUMN
Our 30 cm. high plaster models were directly translated to the full-scale construction of a three metre-
tall column - a ten-fold increase in the height, and a thousand-fold increase in volume. The ability to use
such small models to predict full-scale mold behavior is accounted for by the fact that tension structures
scale-up linearly. This makes it possible to intuit full-scale effects from small working models. Nearly
any structure that can be built with a miniature fabric mold can be built in a full-scale fabric mold.
Above Left: because the mold is exible, the concrete can be externally vibrated by hand
Above Center, Left & Right: In this cast, a self compacting concrete (SCC) was used. The highly
owable and almost liquid character of SCC necessitated the use of a temporary dam or collar,
shown here placed at the base of the column to restrain the bottom free edge of the formwork fabric.
This collar is held in place by a workers foot until the concrete has lled the rst 15 or 20 cm. (6 or
8 in.) of the column, after which it can be removed for the rest of the pour (after applying this initial
pressure, the fabric becomes stiff as it is tensioned). Normal concrete, which is not liqueed, can be
poured without need of such a collar.
Above Right, Top: The formwork lled and bleeding excess mix water through the permeable geo-
textile membrane -this loss of mix water signicantly increases concrete strength and quality.
Above Right, Bottom: Detail of formwork base, illustrating the free edge of the fabric against the
foundation. In this case the fabric was mistakenly cut 1.5 cm too short, yet the detail works perfectly.
Left: Formwork before placing concrete. Right: Formwork after placing concrete.
Note the tuck taken in the formwork by ropes threaded through the fabric. This is done to reduce the
bulging that would otherwise occur at this location due to the excess fabric gathered in the at sheet
at a branching point.
MULTIPLE BRANCHES FROM
A FLAT SHEET
Multiple branches may also be formed branch-
ing off a single trunk using a at-sheet mold in
a Bulge Wall type formwork. Though these
branches are limited to a single plane, there are
other ways (not shown here) to use at-sheet
molds for casting columns with branches in more
than one plane. These more complex casts,
however, must be done as pre-cast pieces, not
as cast-in-place members as illustrated here in
these plaster models.
Left, Top: This image illustrates how multiple
branches can be formed using a at-sheet form-
liner that is allowed to deect outwards from a
proled opening cut out of a at plywood sheet.
Bottom Left and Right: Small-scale plaster
models of multiple branching columns.
There is an inherent constructional and organizational simplicity to using ninety-degree joints in our
structures, and our tools and materials are, accordingly, made to facilitate these constructions. Branch-
ing structures, though theoretically more efcient in the use of materials, are difcult to build using con-
ventional tools and methods of construction. In order to build such a structure with the straight, milled,
sticks and sheets of conventional steel or wood construction, a multiplicity of individually angled and
tted members and joints are required.
Cast concrete, on the other hand, can eliminate this proliferation and complexity of parts because it
can be monolithically formed into any shape, as long as a suitable mold can be provided -- and therein
lies the trick. Conventional formwork construction is inherently ill-suited to the production of branching
shapes. Flexible fabric formwork, however, can easily form branching molds, even when using simple
at sheets of fabric without patterns or tailoring.
With fabric formwork, the difculties faced in constructing a branching structure are not in the molds,
but in the structural design and analysis methods they may require, and in their reinforcing design and
assembly. Research points to simple solutions on both counts, though more work is required to rene
and test their efcacy in commercial applications. One way to simplify both structural analysis and
reinforcing design, while forming beautiful structures that use a minimum of materials, is to use these
branching concrete forms to build structures that follow naturally efcient compression force paths. In
terms of material use, this is a very good way to use concrete (which loves compression). Architectur-
ally it suggests the discovery and invention of a new kind of compression-based architecture.
The single most efcient way to carry a load is through linear tension (ex. the tension arch of a hanging
chain). The second most efcient structure is the compression arch (in the form of an inverted tension
arch). The price for this efciency is paid for in the lateral thrust an arch produces. Signicantly, the force
of this thrust increases dramatically as the depth of the arch is reduced. These forces must be resisted
either by providing a tie to close the arch at its springing points, or by providing well buttressed supports.
Either solution adds complexity to the overall construction. Beams, on the other hand, span through bend-
ing, a mechanism that combines and joins tension and compression within a single member, eliminating
lateral thrust to the supports. This lack of thrust makes beams very easy to use in construction, though
this structural convenience is paid for by reduced material efciency; bending structures such as beams
and at slabs require more material to carry the same load as a compression arch or tension span. All of
these factors must be dealt with any proposed alternative to rectangular frame and slab structures.
BRANCHING vs. RECTANGULAR CONSTRUCTIONS
- a new compression architecture -
An inverted photograph showing a gravity drawing at CAST studying forms for branching columns
and arches. We use these hanging chain models, much as Antoni Gaudi did, as our form calculators.
The high material efciency of pure compression
spans presents an interesting sustainable construc-
tion strategy for reducing materials consumed in con-
crete construction. Like most sustainable strategies,
this method looks backwards to older techniques
and technologies - in this case to an ancient structural
strategy of compression arches and shells, resurrect-
ed and transformed here by exible molds that form
curved reinforced concrete compression members.
This construction method was developed, like all the
fabric formwork techniques at C.A.S.T., using at
sheets of fabric in small analog models. The photo-
graphs above (Top Left, Top Right) shows plaster
models of a compression arch structure that springs
from branching columns (similar to the Y-shaped col-
umn shown (Bottom Left). The formwork model (Left
Middle) is a Bulge Wall type. As described previ-
ously, this method uses standard plywood wall form-
work with structural fabric form-liners that are allowed
to bulge out of cut-outs in the plywood panels. The
line of arching structure may be buttressed at its ends
by a full thickness wall portion cast as a monolithic
part of the structure. This wall receives and resists the
thrust generated by the compression arches.
Concrete only works in compression, so by plac-
ing the entire structural section in its natural mode
of resistance (compression), concrete volumes and
reinforcing steel may be reduced. Any reductions in
structural section will lower the buildings overall dead
weight, leading to further savings in underlying sup-
port structures - particularly in the foundations.
ARCHED STRUCTURES
CAST IN WALL FORMS
The drawing (Above) illustrates branching columns sup-
porting branching funicular fabric-cast trusses that utilize
a combination of tension and compression arches. Cast
plaster models of these reinforced concrete trusses are
shown Left Top, and the mold for these models is shown
Bottom Left. The formwork method uses at sheets of
fabric stretched across a simple rigid frame. A full-scale,
4-meter reinforced concrete truss is shown with its form-
work Bottom Right. [C.A.S.T. technology for manufac-
turing fabric-cast trusses is described in the article Fab-
ric-formed Truss available at: http://www.umanitoba.ca/
cast_building/resources.html.]
IN BRANCHING STRUCTURES
CAST TRUSSES
A branching structure is used here (Top and Left, Top -
Bottom) to make a light-weight structure that is also stiff.
Efciently shaped trusses are more exible than equiva-
lent depth uniform-section beams. The branching arms
of the columns stiffen this structure by reducing the effec-
tive span while at the same time completing an integral
compression arch, leading to a stiffer structure than simply
supported trusses on vertical columns.
BRANCHING SUPPORTS FOR
VAULTS
Branching supports can also be used to gather and
resolve the natural thrust lines produced in com-
pression shell structures as illustrated by the hang-
ing gravity drawing shown (Left Top). Compres-
sion shells can be easily produced from at fabric
molds as described in the articles Thin Shell Walls
and Vaults for the Open City and Thin Shell Con-
crete from Fabric Forms, both available from http://
www.umanitoba.ca/cast_building/resources.html
* See, for example, P. Block & J. Ochsendorf.
(2007) Thrust network analysis: a new methodol-
ogy for three-dimensional equilibrium Journal of
the International Association for Shell and Spatial
Structures, Vol. 48, No 3, pp. 167-173.
Interactive engineering design software for shap-
ing and calculating compression shell structures is
currently being developed by engineers at MIT in
the U.S. and the ETH in Switzerland*.
Dr. John Ochsendoft: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge, MA (USA). Dr. Phillippe
Block: The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH) in Zurich Switzerland.
SELF-ORGANIZING BUCKLES IN FLAT-SHEET THIN-SHELLS
When a at sheet of fabric is pulled in tension, it will spontaneously form buckled folds along the prin-
ciple lines of stress (between the pull-points). This forms a kind of branching where deep corruga-
tions are spontaneously formed along specic lines of force. The fabric sheet will organize these folds
or buckles according to its own requirements for resistance through a geometric response to the strains
it feels. These self-organizing formal responses to force can be used ornamentally or structurally to
channel ows of forces through thin-shell vaults towards structural supports. For example:
A mold for a pre-cast cantilevered slab can be made from a at sheet of fabric (Top Left). In this case,
the fabric that makes the mold is twisted so that the tension stresses caused by this torsion are regis-
tered in the mold as deep folds (arms) radiating from the support point to the edges of the slab (Top
Right).
The mold shown Bottom Left pins the fabric sheet in a circular pattern inside the slab perimeter. When
the centre of the fabric is pushed upwards it can form a mold to cast the corrugated oral precast slab
shown Bottom Right.
A at fabric sheet held at its four corners (Top Left) can form a mold to produce a precast compression shell (Top
Right). The buckles that naturally form along the principle lines of tension stress, radiating from the corner supports
of the fabric mold sheet, translate to deep buckling-resistant corrugations or ribs in the shell cast from this mold.
Likewise, a at fabric mold can be shaped by selective pretensioning as shown in the plaster shell models Middle
Left and Bottom Left, and the full-scale mold-making rig Middle Right. In this mold, the at sheet is pretensioned
along its centre-line. A full-scale thin-shell vault being cast from this kind of prestressed fabric sheet mold is shown
Bottom Right. Note the naturally formed deep corrugations branching from the end supports of this vault. [see
Thin Shell Concrete from Fabric Forms: http://www.umanitoba.ca/cast_building/resources.html]
BRANCHING STRUCTURAL FOLDS AND RIBS
BRANCHING RIBS IN A SLAB
Ribs can be formed to stiffen a slab by using pull-buckles that are
guided into specic openings in a at deck formwork. The Photo
Left Middle shows a plywood formwork deck with cut outs at the
rib locations. Left Bottom shows how at sheets of fabric on either
side of the mold can be pre-tensioned into these cutouts to make
branching rib forms. Bottom Left is a view of a prefabricated ribbed
T-beam cast from this mold. Below is a photo of plaster models
showing the underside of a roof or oor structure utilizing these
ribbed T-Beams. The Photo Top Left shows a single rib formed in
this manner from a fabric formwork model lled with plaster.
BRANCHING BEAMS AND RIBS
The same formwork techniques described above for casting branching structures in cast-in-place wall
forms can also be deployed in horizontal formwork to cast branching beam structures. Below Left is
a photograph of a model formwork for a branching beam-drop in a at slab structure. Below Right is
the small-scale plaster model cast from this mold. The photograph Above shows one possible spatial
arrangement of these beam + slab structures.
Following Page Top shows a close-up view of a model beam-drop at its branching point.
Following Page Bottom is a view of the underside of a modeled slab + beam structure. Branched sup-
port columns are shown in Pink/Red.
CREDITS
Thanks to CAST Research Assistants Aynslee Hurdal, Leif Friggstad, Mike Johnson, Kyle Mar-
tens and CAST Research Associate Ronnie Araya who helped make and develop these things.
Thanks also to the Lafarge Building Materials Group precast factory in Winnipeg Manitoba.