Experiment 3 : Casting the mix of concrete in units to design a seating

Apparatus and Materials Required : Cement, sand, aggregate, water, fabric (cotton sheet), plastic sheet, tub.

Procedure :  

• Preparing a concrete mix with a  cement:sand ratio of 1:2 with 200ml of water.

• Casting concrete in three units.

a) Unit 1: Casting in tub filled with aggregate covered with cotton sheet.

b) Unit 2: Casting in tub filled with sand covered with plastic sheet.

c) Unit 3: Spreading sand and aggregate over a flat surface and covering different regions with cotton sheet and plastic sheet.

• Letting the mix dry and record observations while it's setting and post it's set.

The Seating

When we look at work of Holtrop, Ishigami and Ensamble, they are exploring and exploiting the plastic property of concrete, i,e., taking the form of the cast. By the gesture of digging, they are exploring form and texture in the phenomenological context and breaking the idea of casting with a predetermined intent. But when we take a deeper look at their work, they are exploring more with the form than the texture. So the argument of mono-material architecture becoming boring still exists. 

This provocation tries to experiment with a slight variation in this existing technique by using different casting materials to have different gestures on the final form. This research is a variation in exploring texture form relationship in the phenomenological context.