Spanning Plastic

Rethinking Plastic

Plastic is one of the most advanced materials ever engineered—versatile, durable, lightweight, and cheap. It is everywhere: in packaging, products, infrastructure, and especially in construction. But its ubiquity is precisely the problem. We treat it as disposable. Most of it isn’t recycled. And the world is now saturated with plastic waste.

This experiment works to reposition PET plastic—not as trash, but as a viable material for construction. Building on earlier research in variable vacuum forming, our team replaced molds with air. Using heat and pressurized inflation, we transform flat PET panels into complex, rigid geometries. The process is formwork-free, low-waste, and repeatable. The result is a structural panel capable of spanning and bearing load through deformation alone.

This workflow reduces labor and tooling costs, opens new pathways for recycled materials in architecture, and unlocks new geometries without added complexity. We believe design innovation must align with environmental urgency. Reimagining plastic is one way we move toward that goal.

Spanning Plastic

Fig 1: Two sheets of very flexible 2mm thick styrene sheets are fused together using a mix of the same plastic dissolved with acetone. Once dry, the assembly is heated and inflated. The result is a structural sandwich capable of supporting an adult.

Fig 2: Structural analysis software generates a force pattern based on loading scenarios. These patterns inform the gluing of individual sheets.

Fig3: A pattern of glued dots creates a topography of structural arteries. This is the sheet holding up our intern in figure 1.

Fig 4: The back of sheet 1B (seen in Fig 1 and Fig 3). The nozzle used to inflate the sheets is visible at the center of the patterned surface.

Fig 5: A different sheet test. In this case the pattern was too sparse and the sheet ballooned, weakening the assembly.

CONTRIBUTORS: Stuart Lodge, Sebastien Roy, Graham Entwistle, Blair Satterfield