This article was taken from the April 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Designer Oluwaseyi Sosanya has invented a loom that weaves in three dimensions -- and he plans to use it to build skyscrapers and bulletproof vests. "Weaving is one of the oldest traditional crafts," the Nigerian-American designer says. "Everything else is becoming more high-tech, but the structures of our textiles are pretty much the same as they were for the Egyptians."
London-based Sosanya has replaced the flat criss-crossing threads of traditional weaving with silicon-coated fibres laced around a scaffold of metal poles. This allows the loom to weave in an additional dimension, and gives more flexibility in the weaving pattern. "I've explored 12 different weaves, but I'm focusing on three with different properties," Sosanya says. Two, including the zig-zag weave, produce flexible, compressible structures; the third, a honeycomb weave, creates rigid ones. "Bulletproof vests are made with multiple layers of fine polyethylene thread, woven in the same 90˚ pattern as an ordinary shirt," he says. But that's problematic for female bodies, which require the vest be segmented to fit. This weakens its integrity, so the weight has to increase to compensate. But by varying the pattern of the weave, Sosanya believes he can create curves in a single piece of bulletproof material.
He now plans to enter the worlds of architecture and aerospace, having recently begun working with Imperial College London to create a new composite structure for aircraft wings. "Imagine a support beam woven from a continuous thread of this material," he suggests. "Within that, you can vary the density, have a heavy load with a tighter weave, then a looser, lighter pattern across the rest of it." But first, Sosanya says, he's going to need a much bigger loom.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
