Rationalizing Bamboo Weaving

A Parametric Investigation of the Kagome Weave Pattern for Generating Complex Morphologies

Abstract

Tracing back nearly 7000 years, the craft of bamboo weaving embodied a rationalization of nature through innovative patterns and techniques. Its immediacy afforded craftspeople the capabilities to create complex morphologies with simple, repeatable methods. Historically, bamboo weaving techniques were passed down through generations by apprenticeship models, but due to modern industrialization, interest in the craft has severely dwindled. Furthermore, the relegation of such craftsmanship to the production of small-scale, commonplace items such as baskets, furniture, and mats overlooked the potential for bamboo weaving to extend these concepts into architectural spaces. Thus, it risked fading into obscurity.

The integration of bamboo weaving at an architectural scale afforded an opportunity to both preserve and revitalize the craft. Additionally, modern parametric tools offered the ability to uncover the nature of bamboo weaving through the use of formal methods and quantifiable parameters. To achieve this, the authors conducted systematic, bottom-up explorations of bamboo weaving techniques in order to rationalize its parameters and break down the weaving process. Such a system allowed for a revitalization of bamboo weaving techniques in a modern setting. 

The authors chose the Kagome weave, a tri-axial pattern, due to its ability to construct complex three-dimensional morphologies while maintaining a high degree of geometric control, redundancy and local reparability. The authors conducted several stages of experiments to break down the complexity of the Kagome weave pattern. Stage one began with bottom-up explorations on the individual Kagome weave parameters to gain control over their localized impacts on the woven morphology. Following this, a second stage of experiments aimed to formalize these material behaviors through the development of a computational workflow to emulate the Kagome weave pattern in a digital environment. This computational model was achieved using the Grasshopper plug-in Kangaroo, a real-time physics engine, to more closely model the material’s behavior. The workflow was validated through several small-scale, physically woven samples. Lastly, a third stage was conducted to comprehensively synthesize the knowledge gained in the previous two stages through the development of a large-scale woven mock-up. In this phase, the developed computational model was compared against a physically woven sample using the same weave pattern with the intent to test the accuracy of both the initial parameter control experiments and their translations within the computational model. 

By re-examining the craft of bamboo weaving through an architectural and parametric lens, the research aimed to revitalize the technique of bamboo weaving in the modern era.