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Traditional methods of construction, including
bricklaying and cast-in-place concrete, often
require long lead times and manual labour,
and lack reversibility or recyclability. Recent
investigations in materials science, however,
have focused on granular jamming, a
phenomenon that has the ability to instantly
and reversibly change phase from solid to liquid
and back.1 Though unusual, it can be found in
a number of everyday
scenarios. These
include
packaged coffee that behaves like a solid when
its amorphously arranged particles, when
subjected to vacuum pressure, come into contact
with each other and get stuck
–
or jam
–
but
pours like a liquid when opened.
Unfortunately, the fragility of the membrane
and need for constant vacuum mean that
traditional applications of granular jamming have
significant
limitations for architectural structures.
However, the collaborative work of Gramazio
Kohler Research at ETH Zurich and the Self-
Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) has recently explored a new
type of architectural-scale granular jamming
utilising loose rocks and fibres, without a vacuum
or membrane, that enables nearly instantaneous
and reversible loadbearing construction through
a solid-to-liquid phase-change.
Rock Print ...
