P-06

Background and purpose

In the Netherlands there is a great demand for sustainable residential- office- and educational buildings. Simultaneously, a large amount of buildings are empty and not used at the moment. Smart transformation of empty buildings into sustainable and flexible houses, offices or schools is needed to meet market demand.

Relevance of research

Transformation of buildings can be done in various ways. In the BOUWTEX project textile materials are researched to make buildings more flexible, energy- efficient, sustainable, and stronger. Why textile materials? Conventional building materials are often irreversible, not sustainable, expensive and labour intensive. Textile materials are lightweight, strong and flexible. Manny properties can be added to textile materials, e.g. water and weather resistance, breathability, colours, prints, isolating properties as well as 3D design options, foldable structures but also recyclability. In previous tests it was shown that it is possible to (temporarily) glue textiles to brick walls thus creating solutions for damaged or worn outside facades. This concept will be elaborated in this project.

Main research question and purpose

How to benefit from textiles as building materials when transforming buildings, focusing on outer wall reinforcement and construction of lightweight, flexible inner-walls.

Our research will concentrate on textiles for exterior walls, with special focus on earthquake damaged buildings in Groningen. How to use textile materials to cover and reinforce: damaged, cracked or obsolete outside walls? Simultaneously possibilities to use textile materials to construct lightweight, flexible, (re)movable inner walls are researched. Main purpose: making use of textiles to transform buildings into better, cheaper, energy-efficient, sustainable and flexible buildings.

Questions, dilemma’s or choices, difficulties you ran into, that you would like to discuss with fellow researchers:

• Which textile advantages are most appreciated for building applications?
• Which rooms/walls in Saxion could be used to show our demonstrator?
• Which buildings in Twente could use a transformation with textiles?

The support of SIA Raak is highly appreciated