The Institute for Computational Design at the University of Stuttgart have completed the Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall in Gmünd, Germany, that has been significantly designed and built using robotics.
You can watch a ‘making of’ video – here.
Project description
The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall is an architectural prototype building and a showcase for the current developments in computational design and robotic fabrication for lightweight timber construction. Funded by the European Union and the state of Baden-Württemberg, the building is the first to have its primary structure entirely made of robotically prefabricated beech plywood plates. The newly developed timber construction offers not only innovative architectural possibilities; it is also highly resource efficient, with the load bearing plate structure being just 50mm thin. This is made possible through integrative computational design, simulation, fabrication and surveying methods.
The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall was conceived at the University of Stuttgart as part of the “Robotics in Timber Construction” research project and realized in collaboration with Müllerblaustein Holzbau GmbH, Landesgartenschau Schwäbisch Gmünd 2014 GmbH, the forest administration of Baden-Württemberg (ForstBW) and KUKA Robotics GmbH. The project demonstrates the new opportunities that arise from the integration of computational design, simulation and fabrication methods for performative and resource efficient constructions made from the locally available and renewable resource wood. The building introduces an innovative, robotically fabricated lightweight timber plate construction system made of beech plywood. It was developed at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD, Prof. Achim Menges), the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE, Prof. Jan Knippers), and the Institute of Engineering Geodesy (IIGS, Prof. Volker Schwieger) and realized in collaboration with Müllerblaustein Holzbau GmbH. The building is part of the biannual Landesgartenschau, where it hosts an exhibition by ForstBW.
Photography by © Roland Halbe and © ICD/ITKE/IIGS University of Stuttgart