Electro(re)forming

Electroforming, a largely dormant 19th-century technique of manufacturing, is scrutinised against the demands of 21st-century architectural fabrication. In an attempt to harness its capability to additively form metallic objects, this project confronts the problem of manufacturing free-form, complex surfaces and structural members, and their perpetual requirement of mass-customisation. It questions the monopoly of subtractive manufacturing methods and their high costs and waste inefficiencies. 

The project develops a hybrid manufacturing method which involves digital design using CAD and CAM, rapid prototyping using 3D printing, and manual assembly and winding by hand. This hands-on, analogue approach involves the maker more closely in the manufacturing process. Using this method, flexible and impermanent formwork such as stretched latex membranes and interlaced networks of fibrous threads are turned into delicate and complex metallic entities. 

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