VARIABLE THICKNESS

Variable Thickness Fibrous Material Composites from Invasive Plant Species acknowledges the increasingly urgent environmental need for the incorporation of bio-based materials into the lifecycle of buildings and looks to address this design problem by exploring the use of invasive plant species as a biodegradable and intelligently programmable material. The project creates a fabrication and refinement process for transforming fibrous invasive plant species including Kudzu (Pueraria montana) and Golden Bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) into both structural elements and architectural surfaces. The project team seeks to create a series of full scale prototypes that prove out the viability of these fibrous composites for larger scale applications. ​ After conducting an initial survey of twenty-seven different invasive species in Tennessee and neighboring states, the project team selected to focus on Kudzu and Golden Bamboo due to the naturally occurring fibrous and flexible structure of each species. The project team has experimented with various methods for forming and compressing these materials into biocomposite assemblies, leading to the in-progress creation of a novel, digitally-controlled pneumatic forming system to create material assemblies with variable density, porosity, and rigidity. The forming system will consist of several steps: extraction, layering, form generation, and pneumatic forming. ​ This project was a collaboration with group members Zherti Jasa and Rose Gowder. An article was written about our studio in the New York Times that featured images of the final bamboo chair, and the premilinary research completed by our team was further developed by our professors in their exhibition “Homegrown” at the Knoxville Museum of Art.