Research
Philosophy — "Material is expensive, Geometry is cheap" Nature designs its structures using smart geometry to save material and to create high performance structures. In building conctruction, structurally efficient shapes have traditionally been expensive, time consuming and labor intensive in their design and construction. However, digital technology such as algorithmic design processes and robotic fabrication bear great potential to take more advantage of smart geometry in buildings, in order to save material, weight and cost. Integral Attachment, the joining of parts through form, rather than additional fasteners is the oldest known joining technique. In timber construction, which is currently seeing a renaissence in architecture, there used to be a rich history of integral joints. Computational Design and Fabrication allows to re-visit traditional joining techniques.
FNR Research Project .TSI — The federal funded BMEL FNR Research Project .TSI - Development of an interface for the automated, structural calculation of novel, digitally prefabricated wooden structures with wood-wood connections - deals with the development of software for the automatic generation and conversion of architecture and structural data from wooden structures into predictable static systems and manufacturing data. With the help of the planned interface, it should be possible to plan wood structures and wood-wood connections more efficiently, to calculate them and to manufacture them automatically with the help of digital manufacturing methods such as CNC milling, robots as well as beam and panel processing systems. The .TSI project runs from 2020 to 2023.
Research Topics
- Digital Fabrication
- Computational Design
- Building Information Modeling
- Timber Construction
- Shell Structures
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References and Credits
- 1. Robeller, C., Integral Mechanical Attachment for Timber Folded Plate Structures, EPFL PhD Thesis No. 6465, 201, DOI: 10.5075/epfl-thesis-6564
- 3. Robeller, C., Helm, V., Thoma, A., Gramazio, F., Kohler, M. and Weinand, Y., Robotic Integral Attachment, in FABRICATE International Conference 2017, Stuttgart, Germany, August 22-25, 2016, ISBN: 978‑1‑78735‑001‑4
- 2. Robeller, C. and Weinand, Y., Fabrication-Aware Design of Timber Folded Plate Shells with Double Through Tenon Joints, RobArch 2016, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-26378-6_12
- 3. Robeller, C. and Weinand, Y., A 3D Cutting Method for Integral 1DOF Multiple-Tab-and-Slot Joints for Timber Plates, using 5-axis CNC Cutting Technology, World Conference of Timber Engineering WCTE 2016, Vienna, Austria, August 22-25, 2016, ISBN: 978-390303900-1
- 4. Robeller, C., Konakovic, M., Dedijer, M., Pauly, M. and Weinand, Y., A Double-layered Timber Plate Shell - Computational Methods for Assembly, Prefabrication and Structural Design, Advances in Architectural Geometry 2016, Zürich, Switzerland, September 9-13, 2016, DOI: 10.3218/3778-4_9