Weft-Knitted Spacer Fabrics

Our goal for this project was to develop a system to create weft-knitted spacer fabrics and explore the possibilities of knit fabric formworks. We design and Fabricated two flat beds knitting machines controlled by arduino to knit the front and back faces of the composite fabric and a robotic arm was used to interface between the two faces : knitting the 3d spacer fabric.

Mark West, Casa del Fascio redrawn

Mark West, Untitled drawing

The context of the project and it’s relation to architecture was inspired by some of the works of Mark West on fabric formworks for concrete. Textile formwork can provide a form language indicative of the transfer of forces and material optimization.