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

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.

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