Researchers from Switzerland’s ETH Zurich university will use robots and 3D printers to design and build a pioneering three-storey house at a local research and innovation campus. Eight professors from ETH Zurich are working with business partners to build the DFAB House.
Within this thesis by Judah Hook is the investigation and development of an alternative fabrication concept that utilises an inexpensive, reusable “pin board” mould that is autonomously set to various CAD derived surface geometries by a 6-axis robotic arm manipulator.
This research by Steven Robert Janssen catalogues robotic construction technology currently being used by architects and discusses the motivations that drive architects to use this technology. This catalogue includes an interview with architect Dr Simon Weir and investigates his motivation for using robotic construction technologies.
This master thesis by Sebastian de Wit is the result of a graduation project where research is conducted on parametric design of segmental timber shell structures. Throughout this report, the design process as well as the development of a parametric model to design, analyze and fabricate segmental timber shell structures is described.
The project Mobile Robotic Fabrication System for Filament Structures by Maria Yablonina, demonstrates a new production process for filament structures. It proposes multiple semi-autonomous wall climbing robots to distribute fiber filament, using any horizontal or vertical surface.
The idea behind the ‘Generative Algorithms, Concepts and Experiments’ by Zubin Khabazi is to explore design and algorithmic solutions through experiments rather than pure geometrical/algorithmic subjects.
Master in parametric design introduces you to parametric design and digital manufacturing in the fields of Product Design, Architecture, Landscape, Digital Fabrication.
This pavilion by Milad Showkatbakhsh, Chritopher Testa, Chris Yu and Shayna Cooper explores the limits of composite aluminum panels. With the use of parametric modelling and digital fabrication, a unitized panel system was designed that aggregates to operate as a larger system of surfaces.
Stone PolySphere installation, designed by Maurizio Barberio and Giuseppe Fallacara (New Fundamentals Research Group), investigates the potential of digital fabrication applied to the stone industry. Stone PolySphere is a lithic sphere with a diameter of 1.4 meters, composed by a massive hemisphere below and a stereotomic hemisphere above.
Designed by the Mediated Matter research group at the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto (TUFTS University) and Dr. James Weaver (WYSS Institute, Harvard University), The Silk Pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on product and architectural scales.
The research team at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) have taken morphological inspiration from the structure of the sea urchin and the sand dollar, both sea-bed invertebrates, to create what almost bears semblance to a floating bee hive, in a team combining architects, engineers, biologists, and palaeontologists.
In this video by Boss Laser you can see how to make a rigid material flexible using your laser cutter. There is a way to use laser cutting to create 3D objects from flat materials, and it uses a clever design element called a Lattice or Living Hinge.
1:1 prototypes (Spring 2012) conducted by Jelle Feringa at the Hyperbody research group of the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, Netherlands, invited Matthias Rippmann to teach about designing funicular shells with RhinoVAULT. rV was used for the design of the exciting cut-foam pavilion resulting from the 2 week design-build digital fabrication workshop.
Fold finding – a novel approach to folded structures – This project, created by Architect Tal Friedman, describes the design and fabrication process of the first self supported folded cantilever made entirely by folding sheets into their final position.
A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a way to use 3-D printers to create objects capable of expanding dramatically that could someday be used in applications ranging from space missions to biomedical devices.
In This video by LGG EPFL you can see the development of novel deployable structures that can approximate a large class of doubly-curved surfaces and are easily actuated from a flat initial state via inflation or gravitational loading.
Navicula is derived from nature, in this case from one of the many microscopic diatoms that float around in the oceans. The flowing, segmented form is shipped as kitset and assembled on site with push-in nylon clips. The thin curved pieces of CNC-cut bamboo plywood create a flowing structure
1:1 prototypes (Spring 2012) conducted by Jelle Feringa at the Hyperbody research group of the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, Netherlands, invited Matthias Rippmann to teach about designing funicular shells with RhinoVAULT. rV was used for the design of the exciting cut-foam pavilion resulting from the 2 week design-build digital fabrication workshop.
Fold finding – a novel approach to folded structures – This project, created by Architect Tal Friedman, describes the design and fabrication process of the first self supported folded cantilever made entirely by folding sheets into their final position.
A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a way to use 3-D printers to create objects capable of expanding dramatically that could someday be used in applications ranging from space missions to biomedical devices.
Design and development of Cupra Kinetic Wall, created by Leva, TODO and Blackboard Berlin for the Cupra stand at 88° Geneva International Motor Show.
This bridge was produced using 3D concrete printing technology by Ghent University in collaboration with Vertico. The design and production of a topology-optimized prestressed concrete bridge is presented. Topology optimization (TO) is a mathematical method that optimizes material layout within a given design space
The Moses Mabhida Stadium by GMP Architekten is located in a sporting precinct in Durban on the shore of the Indian ocean and features a 105-metre arch that rises over the circular stadium. The arch is connected by cable system to the external edges of the roof, carrying the weight of the roof’s inner membrane.
This shingled timber pavilion was created by masters students on ETH Zurich’s Digital Fabrication course, who developed robotic fabrication techniques to minimise the waste involved in its construction.
Yama Karim, Principal at Studio Libeskind, talks to BuiltWorlds about the challenges and the design process for the Vanke Pavilion in Milan, Italy. The pavilion was created for Chinese real estate developer Vanke for the 2015 Milan Expo.
Navicula is derived from nature, in this case from one of the many microscopic diatoms that float around in the oceans. The flowing, segmented form is shipped as kitset and assembled on site with push-in nylon clips. The thin curved pieces of CNC-cut bamboo plywood create a flowing structure
Reebok is using 3D technology to break the mold. Bloomberg’s Anne Mostue visited the Boston-based company’s headquarters to see how it’s using proprietary liquid material, software and robotics to draw shoes in three-dimensional layers
If you want to build this: two chunks of 2×4 that were each 20″ long were cut. These were then ripped into 14 strips, which were eventually cut in half. Of these 28 total pieces, 18 were used for hexagonal and 10 were used for pentagonal tubes.
Shapeways opens up 3D printing to the masses, allowing us to design and share our ideas as well as realize them as physical objects.
Researchers from ETH Zurich have built a prototype of an ultra-thin, curved concrete roof using innovative digital design and fabrication methods. The tested novel formwork system will be used in an actual construction project.