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10. Textile Scaffold

This week we were introduced to molding with leather and mycelium, crystallization and composites, I chose to focus on composites, specialy with biomass based on natural wood pulp I recolected from the woods and started experimentating with in the Biofabricating week.

Techniques we were introduced during the lesson:

  • Composites: A composite is a material formed by combing two or more constituent materials => compression molding, thermoformin with vacumm

  • Leather molding: process of molding leather by wetting it and stretching and sculpting it to an object or mold

  • Fabric Formwork: the use of structural membranes as the main material for molds

  • Crystilazation

  • Textile and wood: adhereing wood to textiles to create different material or creating garments and soft structures out of wood.

  • Digital and Biological Fabrication: growing a textile => roots from seed, germinmation, silk from worms, for ex

References & Inspiration

get inspired!

Check out and research alumni pages to betetr understand how to document and get inspired

Experimentation

Biocomposites

Fabricatin Biocomposites is very similiar as cooking bioplastics, the diference is mainly the amouint of material al the end of the process, and compressing the preps.

As aglutinates we used mainly pine resine + bee wax and gelatine

Gelatine based Biocomposites

- 70 ml water
- 30 gr gelatine
- 70 gr pistacho

- 70 ml water
- 30 gr gelatine
- 70 gr raw wool

Textile based composites

- 70 ml water
- 30 gr gelatine
- 70 gr textiles

- 70 ml alcohol
- 30 gr bee wax
- 70 pine resine
- 70 gr textile

Pine resine + bee wax based composites

For this composites we tried two diferent recipe with the same filler => mate & wood dust => the best recipe was number 1. And thats the one we used for the rest

1. 

- 15 gr alcohol
- 15 gr resine
- 5 gr bee wax
- necesary amouint of filler (waste)

2. 

- 30 gr alcohol
- 10 gr resine
- 30 gr bee wax
- necesary amouint of filler (waste)


Sand + eggshell
- 15 gr alcohol
- 15 gr resine
- 5 gr bee wax
- 100 gr of sand + egg shell

Wood dust
- 15ml alcohol
- 40 gr wood dust
- 15 gr resine
- 5 gr bee wax

Wood dust
- 30ml gelatine
- 10 gr wood dust
- 70 gr water

Mate
- 30 ml alcohol
- 40 gr mate
- 10 gr resine
- 30 gr bee wax

Mate
- 15 ml alcohol
- 40 gr mate
- 15 gr resine
- 5 gr bee wax

Orange peel
- 15 ml alcohol
- 40 gr orange peel
- 15 gr resine
- 5 gr bee wax

Bio woodpulp composites

This were made from the pulp I recolected at the forest for Biofabricatin week. I experimented with cmc, gelatine and pine resine. Ass well as an extrudor material. I get really hard when its dry but it shrinkes a lot a looses its shape.

- 15 gr alcohol
- 15 gr resine
- 5 gr bee wax
- 30 wood pulp

- 30ml gelatine
- 10 gr wood pulp
- 70 gr water

- 5gr cmc
- 10 gr wood pulp
- 100 ml

Growing textiles

Roots and sprouts

For this experiment we chose three types of seed; chia, grass and lentils As growing substrate we used agar, raw wool, some textiles, and plastic bag.

TYPE OF PLANT GERMINATION PROCESS ROOT TYPE Seed source
Brown lentils 24-48 hours to germinate in water - soaking in water before placing in growing media taproot supermarket - intended for cooking
Chia germinate in 2 to 6 days - no pre-soak tap root Healthy food store
Grass Seed no pre-soak them fibrous roots garden centre - taught to planting

Agar Growth medium preparation

∙ 4g agar
∙ 1l water

∙ Molds 
∙ Pots and stovetop 
∙ Mixing tools (spatula, cooking spoon, fork)
∙ Spatula or squeegee
∙ digital weighing scale

∙ Measure the ingredients.
∙ Add all in a pot and mix well 
∙ Heat the mixture until it starts bubbling while stirring constantly. 
∙ Pour mixture into a mold (let it cool for a bit before if the mold is not heat resistant)
∙ Let the material cooldown to jelly consistency
recipes links from former participants

Check out and research alumni pages to betetr understand how to document and get inspired

We did not follow lots of recipes, we just played with it. We used a lot of diferent bases for the seeds to germinate, it was a little bit random. But we make sure to moist the seeds every day and let them rest in a dark, cosy and humid area until the first sprouts appear. Chia seeds were the first ones to show up, then the lentil, and finally the grass. It took 3-5 days to the lentils and chia, the grass asbout 5-7 days but the results of the grass were really amazing.

After seen the first sprouts appeared we decided to buil a grow tent under a table with grow led lights and some garbage bags so that the germinated seeds would grow stronger. We let them there for a week. The led lights really helped the the sprouts to grow greener and stronger. After a week we moved all our germination table next to a window to recibe sunlight.

Growing process

trunk tree pulp biomass + chia seeds

raw wool + grass

Chia + agar

Grass + agar

Results

The most interestin result in terms of how long did the sprouts stayed alive was the grass. The roots grew a lot. Thge chia and the lentils grew faster but they also died first. The problem we had was the weekend, when nobody coud spray the seeds and some of the germiantions dried out during those days. The grass resisted and kept growing in terms of root and germination.

Crystallization