Project Award

DigitalFUTURES Project Award 2023

InterTwig is an experimental structure that combines willow, a fast regrowing material, and earth to showcase a strategy for novel circular construction methods based on digital construction technologies. Emerging from a materiality perspective, the project revisited vernacular building techniques that used natural composites, such as wattle and daub, to understand how these traditional methods can be digitally reinterpreted.

Inspired by textile fabrication concepts, the slender and flexible willow branches are transformed into stable configurations that can serve as integrated rebar and formwork for earth components. Integrative digital design techniques afforded the versatility and adaptability to deal with the variations intrinsic in the natural materials and enabled the development of the construction system.

The structure stands as a compelling demonstration of the expressive potential, morphological versatility, and construction opportunities enabled by renewable materials and earth composites, providing valuable insights into the implementation of digital circular construction.

Credits:

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - Department of Architecture
Professur Digital Design and Fabrication (DDF)
Tenure-Track Prof. Moritz Dörstelmann, Erik Zanetti, Eszter Olah, Daniel Fischer
Professur Design of Structures (dos)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Professor Riccardo La Magna, Tamara Haußer, Gianluca Casalnuovo
Students M.Sc. course “Digital Wicker 2.0”: Teodora Bondar, Elisabeth Genest, Shunze Hou, Alicia Pizzignacco, Cesar Antonio Requejo Peña, Lara Sodomann, Kalin Yanev
With the support of: Fanny Kranz, Javier Fuentes, Michael Kalkbrenner

The livMatS Pavilion

The livMatS Pavilion offers a viable, resource-efficient alternative to conventional construction methods and therefore represents an important step towards sustainability in architecture. It constitutes the first building ever with a load-bearing structure that is entirely made of robotically wound flax fibre, a material that is fully renewable, biodegradable, and regionally available in Central Europe. Through a novel combination of natural materials and advanced digital technologies, this pavilion stems from the successful collaboration of an interdisciplinary team of architects and engineers of the ITECH master`s programme at the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC at the University of Stuttgart and biologists from the Cluster of Excellence livMatS at the University of Freiburg. The bioinspired pavilion showcases how novel co-design processes that account concurrently for geometrical, material, structural, productional, environmental, and aesthetic requirements, together with advanced robotic fabrication techniques applied to natural materials, are capable to generate both expressive and ecological architecture.

PROJECT TEAM :

livMatS Pavilion, Botanic Garden of the University of Freiburg
ICD Institute for Computational Design and Construction - Prof. Achim Menges
Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, University of Stuttgart
ITKE - Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design - Prof. Jan Knippers
Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, University of Stuttgart
Scientific Development:
Marta Gil Pérez, Serban Bodea, Niccolò Dambrosio, Bas Rongen, Christoph Zechmeister
Project Management:
Katja Rinderspacher, Marta Gil Pérez, Monika Göbel
Concept Development, System Development, Prototyping:
2018-2020: Talal Ammouri, Vanessa Costalonga Martins, Sacha Joseph Cutajar, Edith Anahi Gonzalez San Martin, Yanan Guo, James Hayward, Silvana Herrera, Jeongwoo Jang, Nicolas Kubail Kalousdian, Simon Jacob Lut, Eda Özdemir, Gabriel Rihaczek, Anke Kristina Schramm, Lasath Ryan Siriwardena, Vaia Tsiokou, Christo van der Hoven, Shu Chuan Yao
2018-2019: Karen Andrea Antorveza Paez, Okan Basnak, Guillaume Caussarieu, Zhetao Dong, Kurt Drachenberg, Roxana Firorella Guillen Hurtado, Ridvan Kahraman, Dilara Karademir, Laura Kiesewetter, Grzegorz Łochnicki, Francesco Milano, Yue Qi, Hooman Salyani, Nasim Sehat, Tim Stark, Zi Jie, Jake Tan, Irina Voineag
Facade Development: Tim Stark
With support of: Okan Basnak, Yanan Guo, Axel Körner Student assistance: Matthew Johnson, Daniel Locatelli, Francesca Maisto, Mahdieh Hadian Rasanani, Lorin Samija, Anand Shah, Lena Strobel, Max Zorn
FibR GmbH, Stuttgart
Moritz Dörstelmann, Ondrej Kyjanek, Philipp Essers, Philipp Gülke
with support of: Erik Zanetti, Elpiza Kolo, Prateek Bajpai, Hooman Salyani, Jamiel Abubaker, Julian Fial, Sergio Maggiulli, Mansour Ba, Christo van der Hoven A joint project of the Clusters of Excellence livMatS, University of Freiburg (Prof. Dr. Thomas Speck, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rühe,) and IntCDC, University of Stuttgart
Supported by:
Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt
Exolon Group GmbH

KnitNervi

Knitnervi is a pavilion-scale demonstrator of a flexible formwork system for constructing a ribbed concrete shell. The highly articulated, doubly-curved geometry is form found to act in pure compression with a tension ring at its perimeter. A bending-active gridshell serves as the primary structure of the formwork and simultaneously as the integrated reinforcement of the final concrete shell. KnitCrete, a CNC-knitted flexible stay-in-place shuttering, encapsulates the expressive geometry.
KnitNervi draws inspiration from the pioneering Palazzetto dello Sport by Pier Luigi Nervi to reimaginea ribbed, thin-shell, reinforced-concrete construction. The project breaks away from the prefabrication and standardisation paradigms enabling expressive and efficient concrete shells by proposing a construction system without the need for complex, wasteful moulds.
It offers a roadmap for interdisciplinary co-development in architecture, engineering and construction. The ambition is to nurture a conversation on sustainable and structurally-efficient architecture in the XXIst century.
Knit Nervi was constructed for the exhibition "Technoscape: The architecture of engineers" at the MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, Italy, 2022.

Full Credits

Design
ETHZ BRG: Lotte Scheder-Bieschin, Serban Bodea, Tom Van Mele, Philippe Block
TUDelft: Mariana Popescu, Nikoletta Christidi
Structural engineering
ETHZ BRG: Lotte Scheder-Bieschin, Philippe Block
Knitted formwork
TUDelft: Mariana Popescu, Nikoletta Christidi
Fabrication and construction
ETHZ BRG: Kerstin Spiekermann, Lotte Scheder-Bieschin, Serban Bodea
with support of Eva Schnewly, Damaris Eschbach, Rolf Imseng, Stefan Liniger
TUDelft: Mariana Popescu, Nikoletta Christidi
Project and site construction coordination
ETHZ BRG: Serban Bodea
TUDelft: Mariana Popescu
Exhibition content, coordination, and curation
ETHZ BRG: Lotte Scheder-Bieschin, Serban Bodea, Mariana Popescu, Kerstin Spiekermann, Noelle Paulson, Katharina Haake, Philippe Block
with support of Eva Schnewly, Rolf Imseng
Sponsors
NCCR Digital Fabrication
ETH Zurich
Debrunner Acifer Bewehrungen
Doka Switzerland
Doka Italy
Pletscher Metallbau AG
Jakob Rope Systems
NOWN
Symme3D
Gisler Bewehrungen AG
Special thanks
Debrunner Acifer Bewehrungen: Pascal Pfister
Doka Switzerland: Mirko Bartelt
Doka Italia: Luca Chiappa
Jakob Rope Systems: Fabian Graber
ETH Zurich Facility Services: Oliver Zgraggen
ETH Zurich Robotic Fabrication Laboratory : Michael Lyrenmann, Tobias Hartmann
Berner Fachhochschule: Simon Von Gunten, Olivier Barth
Pletscher Metallbau AG: Reto Wetter
Gisler Bewehrungen AG: David Gisler
Documentation and Video
Footage: Thom de Bie, Mariana Popescu, Lotte Scheder-Bieschin, Serban Bodea
Editing: Thom de Bie
Animations: Lotte Scheder-Bieschin, Michele Capelli
Copyright Information
All video footage:
© ETH Zurich / BRG
© TUDelft

DigitalFUTURES Project Award 2022

Tortuca: Hollow Glass Unit Bridge Prototype

Tortuca is an efficient and innovative structural system constructed by the dry assembly of thirteen hollow glass units. Each block is made of 1cm (~0.4″) glass deck plates and 2cm (0.7″) acrylic side plates precisely cut to match the structural geometry. The structure spans 3.2 meters (10.5 ft) with a mass of only 250kg (550 lbs), where the float glass is the primary load-bearing material. Moreover, a single person can assemble and disassemble the structure without needing a crane or additional labor. The geometry-based structural design methods of polyhedral graphic statics were used to design the optimized structural form of Tortuca. This research explores the potential of using an extremely delicate material such as float glass as a primary structural system in buildings and infrastructural projects. Furthermore, it shows how the use of construction materials can be minimized and how utilizing the material in its purest format would make the recycling process much easier after the structure’s life cycle.

Credits:

Polyhedral Structures Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University, The City College of New York (CCNY), Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), and Eventscape NY, Long Island City.

Principal Investigators: Masoud Akbarzadeh, Joseph Yost, Mohammad Bolhassani, Jens Schneider Project

Architect: Yao Lu

Project Team: Yao Lu, Ali Seyedahmadian, Philipp Amir Chhadeh, Matthew Cregan, Mohammad Bolhassani, Thomas Lee, Vincent Micozzi, Tristan Fischer-Smith, Joseph Robert Yost, Jens Schneider, Gareth Brennan, Masoud Akbarzadeh Structural and Computational detailing: Yao Lu, Masoud Akbarzadeh Structural Analysis: Philipp Amir Chhadeh and Mohammad Bolhassani Structural Load testing: Joseph Robert Yost and Mathew Cregan Fabrication and assembly: Yao Lu, Ali Seyedahmadian, Thomas Lee, Vincent Micozzi, Tristan Fischer-Smith, Gareth Brennan Five-axis milling services: Eventscape NY Plywood formwork: Eventscape NY Metalworks: Eventscape NY Five-axis waterjet services: AquaJet Services LLC

Striatus – 3D concrete printed masonry bridge, Venice, Italy, 2021

Striatus is the first of its kind: an arched, unreinforced masonry footbridge composed of 3D-printed concrete blocks assembled without mortar. Exhibited at the Giardini della Marinaressa during the Venice Architecture Biennale until December 2021, the 16x12m bifurcating footbridge combined an ancient structural typology with a state-of-the-art fabrication method to create a new formal language for concrete that is digital, sustainable and circular. 3D concrete printing (3DCP) allows for the design of complex stereotomy and enables the integration of architectural components into the structure. The bridge’s 53 3DCP voussoirs were produced using a 6-axis robotic arm and a two-component (2K) concrete ink. The non-parallel print layers were designed to be orthogonal to the flow of forces, allowing the unreinforced 3D-printed components to be used directly as the main and only structure. Proposing a new language for concrete that is structurally informed, fabrication aware, and ecologically responsible, Striatus optimises the interrelated properties of masonry structures, 3D concrete printing (3DCP) and contemporary design and presents an alternative to traditional concrete construction.

Credits:

Project by the Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHACODE), in collaboration with incremental3D (in3D), made possible by Holcim.

Maison Fibre

Maison Fibre, exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, explores an alternative approach to the design and construction of future habitable spaces. In response to the exhibition theme “How will we live together?”, the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) of the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC at the University of Stuttgart present a full-scale inhabitable installation made entirely from robotically produced, fibrous building elements, constituting the very first multi-story structure of its kind. Maison Fibre offers visitors the intense material experience and spatial expression of future, highly dematerialized structures, where each building element can be locally made from just a few kilos of construction material. Compared to Le Corbusier’s Maison Dom-Ino as a role model for 20th century architecture, the weight footprint of Maison Fibre is reduced fiftyfold and points toward a novel material culture in architecture, as well as the related ecological (material and energy), economic (value chains and knowledge production), technical (digital technologies and robotics), and sociocultural matters entailed herein.

Design team / credit list of the project:

ICD Institute for Computational Design, University of Stuttgart
Prof. Achim Menges
Niccolo Dambrosio, Katja Rinderspacher, Christoph Zechmeister
Rebeca Duque Estrada, Fabian Kannenberg, Christoph Schlopschnat

ITKE Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design, University of Stuttgart
Prof. Jan Knippers
Nikolas Früh, Marta Gil Pérez, Riccardo La Magna

Lab support: Aleksa Arsic, Sergej Klassen, Kai Stiefenhofer

Student Assistance: TzuYing Chen, Vanessa Costalonga Martins, Sacha Cutajar, Christo van der Hoven, Pei-Yi Huang, Madie Rasanani, Parisa Shafiee, Anand Nirbhaybhai Shah, Max Benjamin Zorn

In collaboration with: FibR GmbH, Stuttgart
Moritz Dörstelmann, Ondrej Kyjanek, Philipp Essers, Philipp Gülke
with support of: Erik Zanetti, Elpiza Kolo, Prateek Bajpai, Jamiel Abubaker, Konstantinos Doumanis, Julian Fial, Sergio Maggiulli

DigitalFUTURES Project Award 2021

Deep Himmelb(l)au

DeepHimmelb(l)au is the result of the cumulative research effort undertaken by Coop Himmelb(l)au which operates at the intersection between architecture, practice and Ai/deep learning.

DeepHimmeb(l)au is an experimental research project led by Design Principal Wolf D. Prix, Design Partner Karolin Schmidbaur and Chbl’s Computational Design Specialist Daniel Bolojan, which explores the potential of teaching machines to interpret, perceive, to be creative, propose new designs of buildings, augment design workflows and augment architect’s / designer’s creativity. DeepHimmelb(l)au is currently the most advanced research dealing with the design potential of AI/deep learning undertaken by any architectural office.

Team: DeepHimmeb(l)au is an experimental research project led by Design Principal Wolf D. Prix, Design Partner Karolin Schmidbaur and Chbl’s Computational Design Specialist Daniel Bolojan and Chbl’s Computational Designer Efilena Baseta.

Fabricating Networks: Transmissions and Receptions from Pittsburgh’s Hill District, Flower Antenna

Designed by Felecia Davis. Pittsburgh’s Hill District was a predominantly Black neighborhood that in the 1930s, 1940s was really vibrant. But towards the end of the ’50s, Pittsburgh decided this was really valuable land and that it should be torn down to make space for a civic center. People had been hopeful of having the government build back into the community. When that didn’t happen, you had protests in 1969. After the protest, people are saying: “Okay, we’re gonna make some architecture here and it’s going to be a benefit to the community.”

Walking into the gallery, you’ll see a gigantic suspended black textile flower, made up of 34 different knitted cones. And some of the cones have embedded into them a copper yarn, which makes the textile active. So as a visitor walks around the piece, they hear sounds of different electromagnetic waves captured in MoMA’s galleries. And then we’ve amplified it in a speaker so that you can hear things that are invisible.

So really the work is about bringing people together in conversation. I believe that one of the important aspects of being a black architect is to construct the social around artifacts and around places and around people. That is just as much a part of making architecture as making a building with bricks and mortar.

Teeter-totter wall by RAEL SAN FRATELLO

The trade and labor relationships between the U.S. and Mexico are in delicate balance. Mexicans throng to the U.S. to find work, but often long to live comfortably in their own country. U.S. industry and agriculture is dependent upon immigrant labor pools, yet the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol, and Immigration and Naturalization Services have made it increasingly difficult to attract foreign labor. The Teeter Totter Wall demonstrates the delicate balances between the two nations.

DigitalFUTURES Project Award 2020

KnitCandela

A flexibly formed, thin concrete shell at MUAC, Mexico City

Built at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City as part of the first exhibition of Zaha Hadid Architects in Latin America (20.10.2018 – 03.03.2019), KnitCandela is an homage to the famous Spanish-Mexican shell builder Félix Candela (1910 – 1997). It reimagines his spectacular concrete shells through the introduction of novel computational design methods and the KnitCrete formwork technology.

The architectural design is the latest expression of the evolving search of the Computational Design Group of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHCODE) for designs that utilise structural and constructional features to enhance the spatial experience of the user. For the realisation of this expression, the Block Research Group (BRG) of ETH Zurich introduced the KnitCrete formwork technology and developed the structural design and construction system. Architecture Extrapolated (R-Ex) managed the execution of the project on site in Mexico City as part of its continued engagement in the digitisation of building trades in Mexico.

The shell’s dynamic geometry is inspired by the fluid forms of the traditional and colourful dress of Jalisco, Mexico. The builders’ nickname for the project was ‘Sarape’, which is a scarf or poncho with a stripe pattern. The shape also pays homage to Candela’s famous restaurant at Xochimilco, a trope he repeated in several subsequent projects.

While Candela relied on combining hyperbolic paraboloid surfaces (or “hypars”) to produce reusable formworks and thus reduce construction waste, KnitCrete allows for the realisation of a much wider range of anticlastic geometries. With this cable-net and fabric formwork system, expressive, freeform concrete surfaces can now be constructed efficiently, without the need for complex moulds. KnitCandela’s thin, doubly-curved concrete shell with a surface area of almost 50 m2 and weighing more than 5 tonnes, was constructed with a 55 kg formwork, brought to Mexico from Switzerland in a suitcase.

image credit : Angelica Ibarra

Steampunk

Tallinn Architecture Biennial 2019 Installation Program Competition Winner

Steampunk is a pavilion constructed from steam-bent hardwood using primitive hand tools augmented with the precision of intelligent holographic guides. Designed by Gwyllim Jahn, Cameron Newnham (Fologram), Soomeen Hahm Design and Igor Pantic with Format Engineers, the installation was built for the 5th edition of Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB 2019) in Estonia, and will remain in place until the Biennale’s next edition. The structure is a prototype for an adaptive design and fabrication system, which is resilient to wide tolerances in material behaviour and fabrication accuracy. The pavilion was built out of steam-bent timber and steel elements, assembled into intricate curved geometries following holographic guides projected through an AR headset. This was to assure precision in what is otherwise a pure craft based process, making it the largest structure to date built on the principles of Augmented Reality assisted fabrication.

URBACH TOWER

A unique tower made from self-shaping wood,

Remstal Gartenschau 2019, Urbach, Germany

The Urbach Tower is a unique wood structure built by the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) from University of Stuttgart. The design of the tower emerges from a new self-shaping process of the curved wood components. This pioneering development constitutes a paradigm shift in timber manufacturing from elaborate and energy-intensive mechanical forming processes that require heavy machinery to a process where the material shapes entirely by itself. This shape change is only driven by the wood’s characteristic shrinking during a decrease of moisture content. Components for the 14 m tall tower are designed and manufactured in a flat state and transform autonomously into the final predicted curved shapes during the industry-standard technical drying. This opens up new and unexpected architectural possibilities for wood structures, using a sustainable, renewable, and locally sourced building material.

The Urbach Tower is the first wood structure made from self-shaped components. It serves as a landmark building for the City of Urbach’s contribution to the Remstal Gartenschau 2019.

image credit : ICD / ITKE – University of Stuttgart

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