An amazing partnership of design flair, material sustainability and a drive to build a truly unique structure has led to Hydronaut, a semi-permanent, demountable structure at Monash University's Caulfield campus.
As a security kiosk for staff, the site had the challenge of providing vision and access to all areas of the building for security staff. Layered over this were requirements for semi-permanence and waste minimisation.
A solution was found in waste PVC fabric, formally used as truck side curtains, which was stretched over frames to form an exterior skin for the building.
The unique, vinyl-covered security kiosk was bestowed the 2015 Small Project Architecture Award by the Australian Institute of Architects, fending off 24 other entries.
Dr Mark Richardson, a Lecturer in Industrial Design at Monash University, talked to us about his use of repurposed vinyl to create a unique structure.
"We were pretty keen to explore using truck tarpaulins as a facade skin from the beginning of the security kiosk project. I'd had conversations with the Vinyl Council about reusing vinyl coated fabrics prior to the kick-off of the project and thought it might be a good opportunity to research new opportunities for its use.
It took quite a bit of time and many prototypes to figure out how to stretch a 3 dimensional form with a consistent surface finish into the tarpaulins. The main difficulty was getting the material to transition from the outer square of the frame to the inner circle of the aperture evenly.
The first few attempts were very wrinkly, but we managed to find a way to consistently form the material using secondary stretching frames and truck ratchet-strap tie downs to tension the tarp. We fixed it in place with a process similar to the way an artist would stretch a canvas. The window apertures, which were made from modified exercise trampolines, were designed to turn out and tension the tarp after the canvas was fixed in place.
The material is amazingly resilient, a lot tougher than I'd initially thought. The ripstop aspect is fantastic, we were able to drill holes in it, block clamp through them and use them as stretching points without the material failing.
The whole venture is a bit of an experiment in longevity really. The security kiosk is meant to be semi-permanent, so it was a perfect opportunity to test how the material will perform as a building facade in the knowledge that it's probably not going to be there forever anyway. We're very interested to see how long it will last in situ; it's out of the sun on a south facing side of the building, so we're hoping we can get a good 7 or 8 years out of it. We'll document how it fares over time."
Formally a senior designer at Ford Motor Company, Mark has worked on projects such as the Territory, R7 show car, European Mondeo and Asia Pacific Fiesta. His PhD research at Monash University focuses on understanding contemporary transportation design trends and seeks evidence to support the advancement of ecological and social imperatives for sustainable mobility systems. Underpinning these interests is the motivation to design upcycled products through socially led, distributed, domestic-scale open-source hardware and production.
ABOUT VINYL COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA
The Vinyl Council of Australia represents the PVC/vinyl value chain in Australia. We're working to advance the sustainability of PVC products and the industry here by encouraging our members to implement product stewardship and best practice manufacturing.
