Plastered Lycra Structures

Grompies is the result of a workshop done at the Architectural Association , School of Design in London. A computer-generated pattern is translated into a lycra and plaster structure with a corporeal quality.

Brendon Carlin and fellow students at the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory have generated an architectural structure by filling Lycra with liquid plaster and then letting it set. Called Grompies, the project involved translating a computer-generated pattern into stitched lines across the fabric using a sewing machine and by hand. These textured fabric canvasses are then pulled taut and fixed to wooden frames before being filled with plaster.

With due recognition to the work of Antonio Gaudi, Frei Otto and Felix Candela, among others. A virtual pattern is generated on the computer through behavioral rule sets which play out with no finite time limits. A moment is observed in the looping of those behaviors in virtual space, and captured. The resulting pattern is translated by hand and sewing machine into a stitched pattern on lycra by printing and tracing its form. The stitched sheets of lycra are fixed to wooden frames constructed of scrap material. A plaster, water mix is poured into the tightly stitched lycra pattern and left to set.