Self-Forming Fabric-Formed Funicular Shells and Moulds.

This paper describes new methods of constructing funicular shell structures using hanging fabric sheets, made rigid by fibre-reinforced concrete, fibreglass, or grouted masonry units, producing full- size funicular shells or shell moulds. This method, developed at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture’s Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology (CAST), is similar to Heinz Isler’s production of funicular, hanging fabric, shell models, with two fundamental differences: 1. the fabric sheets are full-size and 2. flat fabric sheets are used that may buckle freely along lines of principle tension stress. This method produces complex buckling-resistant, funicular shell shapes of great beauty through an essentially “self-forming” process that is simple, economical, and accessible.