Archinect - News

AA School of Architecture students construct timber 'Tree and Truss' structure using robotic fabrication

2024-10-29T12:19:00-04:00

A new student-led project from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) that combines robotic fabrication processes with new software applications has been shared with Archinect as part of the school's Design + Make 2022-24 cohort.

Image: courtesy Design + Make course Architectural Association/Photographer Rafael Ferres Echavarren

The 'Tree and Truss' project is a mass timber structure made from locally sourced materials and designed to support the columns and trusses of a new lecture hall standing in Hooke Park on the school's Woodland Campus.

Image: courtesy Design + Make course Architectural Association/Photographer Rafael Ferres Echavarren

Together, the students say: "The project explores a hybrid structure that seamlessly transitions from natural geometry to engineered timber and regards the tree as column and the truss as beam as the fundamental points of departure. We design through making and aim to work with the material behavior of timber."

Image: courtesy ...

Robotic fabrication and hybrid structural systems are showcased in the University of Stuttgart's new ITECH Pavilion

2024-10-04T18:52:00-04:00

A team of researchers led by Achim Menges of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and Jan Knippers of the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart has unveiled a new pavilion made using a novel combination of bio-based materials.

The hybrid structural system behind the ITECH Research Pavilion 2024 is composed of timber and natural flax fiber polymer composites (or NFPCs). Menches and his colleagues were guided by recent research into fiber-polymer composites. The complete assembly works via the compressive strength of timber and tensile properties.

Image courtesy of ITEK and ICD at the University of Stuttgart

The pavilion was erected within the university’s Stadtgarten. It covers an area of roughly 484 square feet and weighs almost 2,130 pounds. The pavilion's structural capacity was shown to be capable of withstanding 1.5 times its own weight and 1.5 times the outside wind load.

Image courtesy of ITEK and...

Space Saloon prepares for round two of experimental design-build workshop set in California's High Desert

2019-03-13T15:44:00-04:00

Last summer, students from SCI-Arc and INDA ventured out to the Morongo Valley to take part in a week-long course in which they designed and built a series of exploratory units. Titled 'Landing', the mobile educational camp was the brain child of Danny Wills and Gian Maria Socci, who set up the workshop in order to explore new formats for education.

After a successful first run, the duo (who co-founded the design laboratory Space Saloon) are gearing up for round two. For their second annual iteration, titled 'Fieldworks', the team will look at the cumulative methods of scientific field research, questioning the approaches, techniques, and processes used to collect raw data outside of a laboratory setting.

Design-build projects this year will be led by Andrew Kovacs of Office Kovacs, Zeina Koreitem & John May of MILLIØNS, and Kyle May (KMA). Additionally, daily workshops will be hosted by a range of professionals, from sound and media artists to historians and architects.

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