Tan Ying Yi

Biography

Ying Yi TAN is a local PhD candidate at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) from the Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD) pillar. Formerly, he graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he attained both M.Arch and BA(Arch) degrees in architecture in 2014.

His PhD research, under the guidance of Dr. Erwin Viray and Prof. Sawako Kaijima, focuses on the development of an alternative fabrication method for curved architectural panels using customised machine-knitted textiles preforms. Additionally, he is also involved in several multi-disciplinary research groups in the Digital Manufacturing and Design Center (DManD), which investigate the design and simulation of knitted textiles for architectural applications.

Research Statement

Ying Yi’s PhD research develops his proposed fabrication method entitled “Graded Textile Shaping”. This technique presents a material-efficient manner to manufacture doubly curved Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composite panels intended for façade cladding or internal walls.

“Graded Textile Shaping” capitalises on the inherent elasticity and customisability of machine-knitted textiles, composed out of glass fiber and polyurethane yarns, to serve as an internal preform and stay-in-place open mould. Subsequently, it employs an adjustable bending-active mechanism consisting of bendable rods inserted into the continuous channels along the textile’s peripheral edges and internal regions. These rods are flexed to shape the planar textile into a curved tensioned surface which is laminated in place with polyester resin without the need for a hard mould backing. Thus, this method contrasts with existing material-intensive mould-making processes used by the industry to create GFRP panels of such geometries.

His research explores the three different phases of this fabrication workflow: (a) Textile design and machine-knitting; (b) Textile edge-shaping; (c) Spray-Lamination and post-processing. Focus is given to the former two phases, specifically in the development of digital-to-fabrication pipelines to assign stitch patterns of different elasticities based on an input curved geometry and construction of a bending-active textile shaping mechanism to accommodate a range of curved anticlastic geometries.

Selected Publications

• Tan & Quek (2019). Graded Textile Shaping: Manufacture of curved Cladding Panels using Multi-material Knitted Preforms. IASS 2019. Barcelona, Spain.
• Tan & Lee (2019). Knit Preform Shaping – Design of Textile Preform and Edge-shaping mechanism for curved composite panel formation. CAADRIA 2019. Wellington, New Zealand.
• Tan & Lee. (2018). The Flexible Textile Mesh – Manufacture of Curved Perforated Cladding Panels. CAADRIA 2018. Beijing, China.