Fiber Compositions - Development of wood and textile layered structures as a material strategy for sustainable design

This study examines composite compositions based on fiber-based materials. It focuses on organic textiles of Jute, Hemp, Wool, Flax, and Glass fiber as a synthetic textile, combined with the lightweight wood species Paulownia. By creating novel composites, the study aims to investigate methods and generate design knowledge for material strategies to improve and reduce material waste in the built environment, further enabled by the use of small elements that can be sourced from waste wood and reclaimed wood. Research is conducted as a hybrid material-computational methodology, developing and testing probes, prototypes and a full-scale demonstrator assembly in the form of a wall seating composition. The results find that the proposed method and resulting composites have significant potentials for both expressive and functional characteristics, allowing tectonic articulation to be made, while creating minimum material structures based on assembly of small elements to larger complex curvature building parts.