Sewing technologies as interdisciplinary innovations in architecture

Safonova Ekaterina Vladimirovna Associate Professor of the Department of Design of the Institute of Architecture and Design of the Siberian Federal University 660041, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Svobodny Avenue, 79, room 2-64 marina-kate@mail.ru Other publications by this author

1. Introduction

     With the development of construction technologies, the boundaries of architectural design are significantly expanding, and this opens up new opportunities for using alternative construction methods. Also, an important role in the development of architecture is played by the need to use environmentally friendly materials and save resources. Innovative concepts in architectural design, production and construction methods based on integration and interdisciplinarity are provided by using the full potential of digital technologies, including the possibilities of automated production.

    The constant qualitative development of technological and information processes in architecture contributes to interdisciplinary interaction with related fields in design and engineering activities and the merging of design areas, including costume design and textile production. In recent years, architectural projects have increasingly explored sewing technologies to create innovative and unique designs. This is due to the fact that sewing technologies allow you to create new shapes and structures that would be impossible using traditional methods and materials.

        The subject of the study is the innovative potential of sewing technologies in architectural design and construction.

   The purpose of the study is to consider the prospects of an interdisciplinary approach in obtaining new technological solutions based on the integration of sewing and textile technologies in the field of architectural design and construction.

The objectives of the study are related to the solution of such issues as:

- determination of the main technological processes for the manufacture of sewing and textile products;

- identification of interdisciplinary ideas in architecture related to the use of technological processes similar to sewing in construction;

- analysis of adapted sewing production technologies in research prototypes and real buildings and structures made of wood (veneer).

2. Materials and methods

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the trend of interpenetration of disciplines was practically realized in the modern design culture. Based on this, the research is based on an interdisciplinary approach involving knowledge from the history of architecture, applied arts and design, history and theory of arts, philosophy, aesthetics, information technology and engineering. An interdisciplinary approach implies the application of theories, methods and practices adopted from other fields of knowledge that can be used in architecture and architectural design.

Thus, the peculiarity of the interdisciplinary approach is to achieve new results by integrating innovative design ideas into the architecture. Comparing the results of disciplinary research, it is possible to discover new, previously undetectable influences, parallel processes in the studied subject areas, analyze integration processes, the growth of interaction and enrichment of architectural design methods and practices. At the same time, interdisciplinary research methods allow us to consider this topic from different angles, expand the research search and use the tools of related sciences.

3. Results and discussion

When considering an interdisciplinary approach in architecture, it is necessary to determine the stages of the technological process of manufacturing garments.

The production process of any product consists of three main stages:

1) modeling, design and development of patterns (product design);

2) preparation of fabric for cutting and cutting (preparation of materials, parts and elements);

3) tailoring of the product and its finishing (assembly of the product) ^[1].

The first stage of creating a sewing product is design, which consists in developing drawings of parts and manufacturing patterns for cutting materials. Patterns are patterns of clothing parts that must be transformed to create a voluminous shell covering the body or its individual parts. The design is a connection of all parts of the product to each other ^[2].

In the manufacture of sewing products, the second stage is the preparation of the fabric for cutting, working with the pattern and transferring contour lines. This stage is no less important than the cutting itself, since the quality of the finished product depends on it.

The third stage is the sewing of the product, which is performed using industrial sewing machines. The machine seam can be connecting, edge or finishing. The connecting seams are used to firmly connect the parts of the garment to each other. One of the types of connecting (stitching) seam is an overhead seam, which uses a straight stitch.

Experimenting with the possibility of introducing sewing technologies into modern architectural objects, researchers have adopted all stages of sewing production, adapting them to various building materials and structures.

An interesting example is the University of Stuttgart in Germany, a research university known for its innovations in design and technology. Achim Menges is an architect, professor and founding director of the Institute of Computational Design (ICD). The Institute within the university, together with the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design of the University of Stuttgart (ITKE), is engaged in the study of automated production processes in architecture. As A. Menges notes, he is "interested in new products both on a technical and design level. Thanks to this, it is possible to make a long-term cultural contribution to architecture" ^[3].

The architect's experimental work is based on an interdisciplinary approach and collaboration with civil engineers, computer scientists, materials scientists, biologists and other specialists in various fields of science and production ^[4]. Menges' projects and research have received numerous international awards, have been published and presented at exhibitions around the world. The projects are also part of several well-known museum collections, including the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Achim Menges, together with a team of like-minded people and students from the University of Stuttgart, have been creating a new research pavilion every year since 2010 ^[5]. Lightweight bionic designs demonstrate, among other things, the possibilities of using automated sewing production in the creation of experimental architectural prototypes. Automatic robots sew and weave buildings, creating sturdy structures that combine architectural elegance and efficient construction, for which a relatively small amount of material is used. "Over the past decade, the materials and processes at our disposal have changed significantly," emphasizes Achim Menges ^[3]. At the same time, the main material for research at the institute is multilayer wooden veneer (plywood) as the most suitable, affordable, environmentally friendly and resource-saving raw materials.

One of the very first experimental pavilions (Research Pavilion) was created in 2015-2016 ^[6].

This project uses textile technologies to manufacture ultralight wooden architectural objects from laminated plywood (wooden veneer). Tracing the stages of the pavilion's construction, one can make sure that it followed the stages similar to sewing production, but adapted for non-textile material - wooden veneer. The parallels between wood and textiles are becoming increasingly apparent with the thickness of the material being significantly less than that commonly used in wooden construction. Considering that the veneer used in the project was only about 1 millimeter thick, it became possible to treat it like a cloth.

Reinforcing padding for sewing - various adhesive materials, used to give the product or parts of the product shape stability. Depending on the required stiffness of veneer plywood, a number of layers were added to various sections and subjected to the lamination process. The bending stiffness was thus calculated and programmed, i.e. the veneer, like the textile material when sewing, was reinforced in the necessary places.

Then, individual parts of the structure were cut out of a laminated plywood sheet using a 3-axis CNC milling machine. This process is similar to cutting out the details of a garment from textile materials according to pre-designed drawings using a technological industrial cutting robot.

The pavilion consists of 151 volume segments, which were manufactured and bent using automated stitching. Initially, flat parts were joined at the edges using a flat seam, resulting in complex three-dimensional shapes based on two-dimensional patterns, as in sewing a textile product. The segments were sewn on a stationary industrial sewing machine, which proves the expediency of sewing plywood on machines of the leather and upholstery industry and indicates the high quality of sewing that can be achieved with their help ^[7].

The adaptation of sewing technology consisted in the fact that when stitching wood, the relatively high strength of plywood required an adjustment of the process. In order to create the necessary force to pierce the veneer layers, the setting of the industrial sewing machine has been changed by increasing the power and therefore a higher puncture force. In addition, in order to prevent the needle from breaking and, therefore, to ensure a continuous manufacturing process during stitching, the needle had to withstand high axial forces and at the same time show a certain flexibility due to deformation when piercing the material. Thus, a titanium nitride coated needle was chosen, providing greater hardness than standard needles and better protection against wear and damage. In addition, polyamide thread was used for stitching, which provided very high tensile strength and abrasion resistance.

In addition to the fact that the plywood parts were bent and sewn together as three-dimensional shapes, it was also necessary to sew strips of PVC membrane made of polyester fiber in order to further connect the segments with each other using lacing. Lacing technology made it possible to gradually tighten the connection between the two segments during the assembly process and, thus, if necessary, adjust the already connected segments.

The designs of other experimental pavilions at the University of Stuttgart (ICD) demonstrate the possibilities of automated production in wooden construction at the prototype level.

In one such research project, ordinary strips of plywood were sewn together using an industrial sewing machine in combination with two interacting robotic manipulators controlling a wooden billet. The end result was a small installation that demonstrated the ability to stitch surfaces of double curvature using conventional plywood strips.

Another construction, "Tailored Structures", is the 2016 graduation project of the Institute's (ICD) students Martin Alvarez and Eric Martinez ^[8]. The project explored the use of robotics and sensor mechanisms in combination with industrial sewing technologies to explore a new way of making wooden structures.

The Sewn Timber Shell 2017 is a joint project of the Institute of Computational Design and Construction (ICD) of the University of Stuttgart and the Research Center for Digital Design (DDRC) of Tongji University in Shanghai ^[9]. The project was presented at the exhibition "Thinking about Digital Technologies" ("Thinking the Digital") at the China Design Museum in Shenzhen in 2017. Machine seams made it possible to sew three-dimensional flexible shapes from flat sheet material. Stitching was also automated and throughout the entire process, wooden parts were consistently added and firmly joined with seams. The result is a wooden pavilion with a unique structural and spatial expression. It can be said that in this pavilion, the traditional methods of cutting and sewing that are used in costume design are reinterpreted in the context of a new material.

The Produce Workshop design studio has developed a pavilion made of Fabricwood plywood ^[10]. The 20-meter arched structure of 280 plywood panels is located in the Herman Miller Shop-in-Shop in Singapore. Inspired by the ergonomic research of Herman Miller brand chairs, the architects of Produce Workshop have developed a wooden surface reflecting a clear understanding of the brand and its features. The surface of the structure creates the effect of a quilted fabric stretched over the frame, just like in furniture production when upholstered chairs with fabric.

The process of making wood look like fabric begins with cutting out the panels of the structure using a CNC machine from a sheet of flat plywood. Produce Workshop uses an interpretation of the technique of sewing a product with tucks, cutting cracks on the surface of plywood. Tucks are cutouts that are made on the fabric to give it shape and facilitate the sewing of the product. The darts on the plywood panel determine the curvature of the plane in the connected and closed state of the tuck solution. Round cutouts are used at the point of convergence of the darts so that the plywood can bend and tears can be avoided. The slots are "sewn up" with cable ties, and the edges of the modular panels are connected with rivets. The whole structure is very light with a minimal frame and is made symmetrical. Thus, another technique of sewing production was successfully applied in the realized wooden structure. The Shop-in-Shop interior was named the best interior of 2017 at the World Interior Festival INSIDE, which took place simultaneously with the World Architecture Festival 2017 in Berlin.

4. Conclusion

1. As a result of the study, three main stages of technological processes for the manufacture of sewing products have been identified, which in an adapted form can be used in the manufacture of architectural objects:

1) development of the design and patterns of the product;

2) preparation of the material for cutting and cutting;

3) assembling the product by stitching.

2. The study demonstrates that interdisciplinary ideas of the application of sewing and textile technologies in architecture lead to a revision of techniques, methods and practices in relation not only to architecture, but also to the fields of construction engineering, automation, digital manufacturing and materials science ^[11]. Recent developments in computational design and computer-controlled manufacturing have significantly expanded the range of wood applications in architecture. Multilayer veneer (plywood) demonstrates excellent mechanical properties and high potential for connections beyond the usual wood connections in construction. The innovative construction method by stitching building material is far ahead of existing building codes. Another important aspect of interdisciplinary collaboration is the use of digital technologies and automated manufacturing, which significantly change the architecture.

3. The considered experimental prototypes and structures have not only effective and resource-saving qualities and characteristics, but also a high level of architectural and artistic solutions, which also emphasizes the need and importance of an interdisciplinary approach in modern architecture. In general, borrowing the principles of sewing and textile technologies helps to create more and more innovative, functional and aesthetically attractive projects in the field of architecture and interior design.

Experimental structures (prototypes) and implemented architectural projects using methods of sewing and textile technologies expand the boundaries of design in modern architectural and engineering practice. The use of sewing technologies opens up new opportunities for creating innovative and unique shapes and designs in architecture.