Archives – 2009
Girli Concrete: Fabrication
18 Feb 2009 – 14 Mar 2009
Fabrication was an exhibition of the outcomes of a 3.5 year collaboration between Trish Belford (Textile designer) and Ruth Morrow (architect).
The exhibition was made up of three main parts:
- The frieze was a piece commissioned for (and now installed in) the Derry Playhouse. The frieze is 7.5m long, made up of 4 pieces – each of which is bent to create light contrast along the surface of the piece. The light contrast is designed to enhance the tactile nature of the surface.
- The panels in the sandpit were experiments for the Derry frieze, including imagery inspired by the fireplace surrounds and fanlight in the Playhouse.
- The panels on the wall opposite the frieze were samples of techniques that had been developed over the previous three years. On the wall were two distinct techniques, used sometimes in isolation and sometimes in combination. The two techniques are ‘linen concrete’ and ‘stitched concrete’. So these samples were not so much product as an illustration of potential products.
- Meanwhile, the exhibition cabinet at the front door of PLACE showed some of the equipment and materials used in the making of Girli Concrete.
From the FAQ produced for the Fabrication exhibition:
What is different about this work?
“There are many examples throughout concrete manufacture of imprinting, colouring or printing on the surface of concrete to enhance its aesthetic; to overcome its greyness and coldness. But Tactility Factory likes the ‘greyness’ and simply adds textiles as a contrast. In other words, it’s the only process that keeps the textiles in the concrete. Getting to a point where the textiles do stay on the surface of the concrete and are neither subsumed nor able to be peeling off, however simple it sounds, has taken literally 3.5 years of R&D to resolve. Its visual attraction belies, a little, the technology required to achieve it.”
Why do you do what you do?
“Our ambition is to ‘Mainstream Tactility in the Built Environment’. We want to create products that are as much about the technical specification as the human interface. But we also do it because its challenging and because generally it’s fun.”
Can you put girli concrete outside?
“Well so far we haven’t but that is because we haven’t yet had the opportunity. But we think we can resolve the additional challenges of being outside by selecting more robust yarns and simpler techniques/designs. We are actively looking for opportunities to test it outside so if you have an idea then let us know.”
How big can girli concrete be?
“As big as you want! To date we have been limited by the size of the space we work in and the muscles in our arms – so we have tended to make samples 30cm or 45cm square– but bigger, wider, curved and folded is all possible.”
Can you put things into the concrete other than textiles and can you use other things than concrete, e.g. hempcrete?
“Of course you can – anything’s possible. It has however taken 3.5 years to develop this technology for the current ‘ingredients’ – change the ingredients and you might have to revisit some of the technology.”
Related
Download a PDF of the Fabrication slideshow [PDF, 6.9mb]
-All content © Tactility Factory 2009
BBC News: A Vision Made Concrete by Rosy Billingham, 7th March 2009
PLACE Blog: Launch night: FABRICATION
Perspective Magazine: “Tactility Factory for Derry Playhouse” [May/June 2009, pp. 82-84 – PDF available from Craft NI]