Tye Farrow envisions using Grip Metal to create skyscrapers supported by lightweight structural bracing. Courtesy Farrow Partners.
Tye Farrow, FRAIC is in an enviable position for an architect. His friend, Ray Arbesman, is the president of a Toronto-based company called Nucap Industries that makes car brake pads. If at first blush the connection between a car part manufacturer and an architect seems un-promising, consider that Nucap start-up company Grip Metal has developed brake pads that entirely eliminate the use of chemical adhesives. Consider that these pads are stronger, lighter, more rigid, and more secure than brake pads used in any car in the 20th century, and it becomes more apparent why an architect might pay attention.
As Montu Khokhar, CEO of Nucap, ex-plains, Grip Metal has developed tooling that extrudes an extremely small pattern of hooks on sheet metal. These hooks are formed on the surface alone, so that sheets as thin as 0.3 milli-metres are not punctured in the process. Pressed with enough weight, the hooks clasp to new materials instantaneously. Like barbs on a thistle, the hooks can attach to any substrate that doesn?t shatter under pressure: another piece of metal, wood, plastic, vinyl, or even some con-crete composite panels. Essentially, Grip Metal makes metal act like Velcro. For the past several years, Farrow has been testing possibilities for how building construction might benefit from this manufacturing innovation. He has determined that becaus...