What is ShapeShell™-RG?
ShapeShell™-RG is a lightweight, strong, and versatile construction material composed of high-strength gypsum and glass fiber reinforcement. It’s known for its durability, flexibility, and aesthetic versatility, making it ideal for architectural applications.
Product Composition
Composed of high-strength gypsum combined with glass fibers to create a lightweight, durable, and versatile material. The gypsum forms the primary base, known for its natural fire resistance, smooth finish, and eco-friendliness, while the embedded glass fibers provide structural reinforcement, improving tensile strength and impact resistance. This combination allows ShapeShell™-RG to be molded into complex shapes and intricate designs without compromising durability. The glass fibers also reduce brittleness and add flexibility, enabling ShapeShell™-RG to be used in a range of architectural applications, particularly for decorative elements like cornices, columns, and panels, where both strength and aesthetic flexibility are essential.
Production Method
The production of ShapeShell™-RG involves mixing high-quality gypsum with glass fibers to create a reinforced composite material. The process begins with preparing a slurry by combining gypsum powder with water and adding chopped glass fibers. This mixture is then poured into molds, which are shaped to form the desired architectural element, whether it be a decorative panel, column, or other intricate design. This can have additional sanding, painting, or coating processes to enhance aesthetics and surface durability. This production method results in lightweight, strong components that are ready for installation in a variety of indoor applications, particularly where fire resistance and design flexibility are essential.
Key Advantages
Glass reinforced gypsum (GRG, sometimes called glass reinforced plaster) is the interior designer’s material for monolithic curved ceilings, sculpted walls, bulkheads, light coves and feature elements that paint out to a seamless finish. ShapeShell™-RG advances the category: reinforcing fibres in a refined geopolymer-gypsum matrix that delivers flexural strength comparable to GFRC at roughly 30% less weight.
Theatres, lobbies, galleries, premium retail and hospitality interiors, domes and vaulted ceilings, column covers, and any interior where the architect has drawn a surface plasterboard cannot follow.
GRG performs adequately for decorative and non-structural applications but is relatively fragile, with limited resistance to impact and moisture. It is prone to chipping, cracking, and deterioration in humid conditions, restricting its use to controlled interior environments.
ShapeShell™-RG offers superior performance with flexural strength of 24 MPa and compressive strength of 49 MPa, combined with excellent impact resistance and dimensional stability. It is 100% non-combustible, moisture-resistant, and lightweight, making it reliable for complex interior geometries that demand both durability and safety.
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Feature
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GRG
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ShapeShell™-RG
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Material Composition
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Gypsum with glass fibres, may include cellulose
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Gypsum with modern fibres & polymers, no cellulose
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Strength-to-Weight
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Moderate
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Higher (24 MPa flexural, 49 MPa compressive)
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Flexibility in Shapes
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Basic decorative forms
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Complex geometries (domes, vaults, columns)
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Durability
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Prone to cracking & moisture damage
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Impact-resistant, moisture-proof, non-combustible
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Surface Finish
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Needs extra prep/finishing
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Ready for primer/paint, custom finishes
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Manufacturing
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Hand-cast, variable quality
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Precision moulding to ASTM standards
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Applications
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Ceilings, mouldings, light panels
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Feature walls, domes, vaulted ceilings
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While GRG remains a common interior solution, ShapeShell™-RG represents a modern upgrade — lighter, stronger, sustainable, and designed for complex geometries. For architects and consultants seeking reliable and high-performance internal finishes, ShapeShell™-RG is the superior choice.
interior ceilings, walls and sculptural features. It is an interior material; for external work the equivalent is GRC, which we manufacture as ShapeShell™-RC.
Gypsum-based materials have inherently good fire behaviour. Ask us for the certification relevant to your project’s compliance pathway.
interior and seamless paint finish: GRG. External, wet areas or non-combustibility to AS 1530.1: GRC.
ShapeShell™ uses digital manufacturing methods to remove cost and allow investment into high-end materials, and their processes and scale allow access to this technology and quality at a competitive price.
ShapeShell™ represents the leading edge in a consolidated response to sustainability, where 3D Design & Engineering, Advanced Materials, and Digital Manufacturing methods result in Efficiency and sustainability
ShapeShell™ serves markets such as Architectural Internal & External, Public Artwork, Civil Infrastructure, Moulds/Tools, and Formwork Markets collaborate with architects, builders, and installers
