Silk Pavillion I

Project

SILK PAVILLION I

Silk I video

What are sustainable and humane methods for harvesting, spinning and weaving silk-based products and structures? How can humans collaborate with other species to create new materials and structures without depleting natural resources?

Silkworm-spun pavilion

Research team: Markus Kayser, Jared Laucks, Jorge Duro-Royo, Carlos David Gonzalez Uribe, Prof. Neri Oxman

‍

Year: 2013

‍

Location: Media Lab. 2013. Cambridge, MA

‍

Platform: Co-Fabrication

‍

Project

The Silk Pavilion, a precursor to Silk Pavilion II, explores relationships between digital and biological construction, proposing methods that unite the biologically spun and the robotically woven. Inspired by the silkworm’s ability to generate a three-dimensional cocoon out of a single silk thread, Silk Pavilion I was developed in 2013 and took form as a three-meter wide dome, constructed over three weeks with a flock of 6,500 live silkworms assisted by a robotic arm. Each silkworm spun a single silk thread filament that is about 1km long. Combined, the silkworms produced a dome-shaped thread as long as the Silk Road.

‍

By studying how the silkworm’s spinning behavior is informed by spatial and environmental conditions, we were able to guide the silkworm’s movement to spin two-dimensional sheets rather than three-dimensional cocoons.

‍

Position

According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), over 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year, leaving harmful imprints on the environment. Less than 10% of this material is recycled, while the rest becomes waste, dumped into landfills and oceans; all the while, plastic-based materials utilize raw ingredients that are extracted from the earth faster than they can be replenished, and are processed through environmentally destructive means. There is another way. Organic structures embody more efficient and adaptable material properties compared with human-made ones, and leave no environmental marks. From a limited palette of molecular components, including cellulose, chitin, and pectin―the very same materials found in trees, crustaceans and apple skins―natural systems construct an extensive array of functional materials with no synthetic parallels.

‍

Chitin, for instance, manifests in the form of thin, transparent dragonfly wings, as well as in the soft tissue of fungi. Cellulose makes up more than half of plant matter planet-wide. These materials, and the living systems they inhabit, outperform human engineering not only through their diversity of functions but also through their resilience, sustainability, and adaptability. The Aguahoja collection (pronounced: agua-hocha) offers a material alternative to plastic subverting the toxic waste cycle through the creation of biopolymer composites that exhibit tunable properties with varied mechanical, optical, olfactory and even gustatory properties. These renewable and biocompatible polymers leverage the power of natural resource cycles and can be materially ‘programed’ to decay as they return to the earth, for purposes of fueling new growth.

‍

Layout of the the underlying support structure

Polygonal panels assembled into a geodesic dome

Biologically-spun silk over robotically-spun silk

Traditionally, silk is harvested by boiling the larvae alive in their cocoons to extract silk thread. In stark contrast, this process allows the silkworms to live and metamorphosize in relative peace.

Process

The base structure of the pavilion was created of 26 polygonal panels made of silk threads laid down by a Computer-Numerically Controlled (CNC) machine. Once established, a swarm of 6,500 silkworms was positioned at the bottom rim of the scaffold, where they began their work, spinning flat non-woven silk patches, locally reinforcing the gaps across the CNC-deposited silk fibers.

‍

The geometry of the pavilion was created using an algorithm that places a single continuous thread across patches providing various degrees of density. The overall density variation of the silk sheets was informed by the silkworm itself, deployed as a biological “printer” in the creation of this secondary structure.

‍

Due to their sensitivity to environmental conditions —geometrical density as well as variation in natural light and heat—the silkworms were found to migrate to darker and denser areas. With this in mind, we were able to calibrate variations in the thickness of the silk sheets to desired specifications.

‍

A sun-path diagram—registering the location of the sun at any point of time during the duration of the installation—was used to determine the placement of apertures on the panels to modulate the distribution of light and heat on the surface, thus influencing the position of silkworms and the density of their silk across the structure.

‍