Commonly referred to as bending-active, the term has come to describe a wide variety of systems that employ the large deformation of their constituent components as a Primary shape-forming strategy. It is generally impossible to separate the structure from its geometry, and this is even more true for bending-active systems. Placed at the intersection between geometry, design and engineering, the principle objective of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the structural and architectural potential of bending-active systems beyond the established typologies which have been investigated so far. The main Focus is set on systems that make use of surface-like elements as principle building blocks, as opposed to previous and existing projects that predominantly employed linear components such as rods and laths. This property places the analysed test cases and developed prototypes within a specific category of bending-active systems known as bending-active plate structures. The first chapters serve as a general introduction to the topic. An overview of relevant recent projects is presented in the introduction, followed by a discussion on the scope of research on bending-active structures. The following chapters lay the theoretical basis in terms of geometry of surfaces and mechanical behaviour of plates. This dual and complementary description serves as the necessary background to understand the limits and potential associated to the deformability of plate elements. The following chapter delves into the first of the two strategies developed as part of this research. Termed form conversion, this approach establishes a one-to-one relationship between the initial base surface and its bending-active counterpart. The chapter proceeds with the presentation of a series of full-scale prototypes that were realised to test the validity of the form conversion approach. Geometrical and mechanical features are discussed in the conclusion of the chapter. The second developed method, named embedded approach, is presented in the next section. This approach takes advantage of the inherent deformation properties of explicitly designed material patterns. The description of the method is followed by the presentation and discussion of the prototypes chosen to test the embedded approach. Finally, the thesis concludes with a critical discussion of the presented methods and a reflection on potential developments for future research.weiterlesen