Stay-in-Place Formwork in Reinforced Concrete Applications

The last hundred years in architecture and civil engineering have been widely dominated by the use of concrete, which became the second most consumed commodity after water. The traditional use of rigid, flat formwork panels has defined reinforced concrete members as a uniform cross section, prismatic structural elements in both design codes and construction methods. These resultant shapes have become practically an inevitable conclusion for concrete constructions. The work of engineer, architect, and builder, Pier Luigi Nervi (1891–1979) was used as a precedent for the basis of the project. Nervi was an adjunct professor at the University of Rome and a prolific writer, who used formwork to define the ever-evolving relationship between building forms, techniques and materials. Seeing technique as preceding form, he examined structural elements that resisted the passage of time and outlasted building typologies and styles. Research was collected from both drawings and construction processes, and through them, a formwork similar to those that Nervi used was constructed. By following the works of Nervi’s style, this presentation showcases the process of analysis and reconstitution of formworks that may reimagine how we use concrete in modern constructions