Winnipeg Free Press

Beautiful isn't the first word that comes to mind when describing concrete buildings. Boxy, sterile and even ugly seem like more fitting descriptions. But it shouldn't be that way, says Mark West, an architecture professor at the University of Manitoba. Concrete can be beautiful. All that's needed is a little bit of fabric to bring out its hidden beauty. The director of the Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology (C.A.S.T) and his students have been experimenting with a revolutionary technique using material similar to a "blue tarp found at Canadian Tire" to mould concrete into aesthetically-pleasing -- and useful -- new shapes for the construction of buildings. "Because the fabric is flexible, you can form the concrete into a whole different class of geometries that would really be difficult to do with wood," he says. Traditional methods of constructing concrete buildings with rounded shapes are expensive, complex and time-consuming, which is why many cement structures have flat surfaces and angular shapes.