As part of a renovation, GLD is designing a series of concrete tables and benches whose motivated forms and constrained budgets resist conventional approaches to formwork.

For complex geometries, traditional concrete formwork tends to be difficult to produce and wasteful in materials: either built-up with supports or milled from solids. We turned instead to bent enameled aluminum and developed a way of creating formwork that is not only able to produce curved surfaces and intersections, but is reusable and lightweight. The self-structuring formwork is made of strategically bent sheets, riveted together at their seams. By capitalizing on the coincidence of bent sheet structural behavior and solid concrete arch behavior, we were able to minimize material and fabrication time, while liberating formal possibilities. Counter-height tables are poured to a thinness of 2 inches; what could be a rough or heavy material is transformed to one of lightness.