CARBONskin

Inside IIT College of Architecture exists a relic, a 1990’s full-scale two-story glass and steel curtain wall mock-up that was used for teaching architecture students about curtain wall design and construction. The mock-up has fallen out of fashion and has been left untouched for a number of years. 

This semester’s plan, by Professor Alphonso Peluso for his Digital Fabrication seminar earlier this year, was to retro-fit a portion of the facade mock-up with carbon fiber. Specifically, he was interested in how he and his students could transform the flat static facade into a dynamic one full of motion. 

This semester his current students are continuing to fabricate the one full-scale facade panel that was 9’-11” tall by 4’-5” wide to be installed on the existing mock-up. Using three layers of carbon fiber the panel will be 1/16” thick.

The resulting project has received wide attention in various media outlets which are available in the sidebar.