ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012: Coreless Filament Winding Based on the Morphological Principles of an Arthropod Exoskeleton

Advanced design, simulation and fabrication technologies facilitate the exploration and transferring of the morphological principles of fibrous systems from biology to technology. The ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012 pioneered such an approach for architecture. Jan Knippers, Riccardo La Magna, Achim Menges, Steffen Reichert, Tobias Schwinn and Frédéric Waimer of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart describe how they approached the design of the pavilion, which is located on the school's campus.     

Computational Material Culture

Computation offers considerable possibilities for architecture, going well beyond the conventional sphere of design that focuses on the generation of complex geometries. Achim Menges , a regular contributor and guest-editor to 2, and Founding Director of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, is renowned for his pioneering approach to computation and materials. He describes how computation is enabling a convergence of the processes of form generation and materialisation, hailing in new areas of architectural speculation and experimentation, as demonstrated by the ICD/ITKE pavilions illustrated here.     

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014–15: Fibre Placement on a Pneumatic Body Based on a Water Spider Web

Process-based biomimetics focuses on the transfer of biological principles to architectural construction. To realise the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014 -15, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Valentin Koslowski, Achim Menges, Marshall Prado, Gundula Schieber and Lauren Vasey of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, sensor-driven robotic fabrication was combined with advanced design computation and simulation. This enabled the construction of an architectural fibre structure on a pneumatic mould, drawing on the complex design of the web of a water spider.     

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14: Modular Coreless Filament Winding Based on Beetle Elytra

The ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Achim Menges, Stefana Parascho, Marshall Prado and Tobias Schwinn of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, is based on biological lightweight construction principles. It demonstrates how the development of integrative processes of design computation, simulation and robotic fabrication enable the simultaneous exploration of novel design possibilities, constructional effectiveness and robustness through the expression of material characteristics.     

Material Behaviour: Embedding Physical Properties in Computational Design Processes

Material behaviour computes form. In the physical world, material form is always inseparably connected to internal constraints and external forces; in the virtual space of digital design, though, form and force are usually treated as separate entities – divided into processes of geometric form generation and subsequent engineering simulation. Using the example of the interdisciplinary ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion, constructed at the University of Stuttgart in 2010, Moritz Fleischmann, Jan Knippers, Julian Lienhard, Achim Menges and Simon Schleicher explain how feedback between computational design, advanced simulation and robotic fabrication expands the design space towards previously unexplored architectural possibilities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fibrous Tectonics

Living nature is characterised by ubiquitous and all-pervading diversity. Over the course of evolution, highly differentiated and infinitely varied systems have emerged in biology. Given the vast range of natural variation, it may come as a surprise that almost all load-bearing biological structures are fibrous composites. Guest-Editor Achim Menges , Director of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD), and Jan Knippers , Director of the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), both at the University of Stuttgart, have conducted several research projects exploring how the principles of biological fibre systems can be transferred to architecture. Based on advanced design computation, simulation and robotic fabrication, these explorations not only open up a new approach to fibre-reinforced composite structures, but also enable the discovery of novel fibrous tectonics.     

Granular Morphologies: Programming Material Behaviour with Designed Aggregates

What if designers were to become more than specifiers of materials, and actually defined the composition of the matter they work with? Granular materials, or rather ‘designed aggregates’, as introduced here by Karola Dierichs , architect and researcher at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD), and Guest-Editor Achim Menges , are one distinct group of materials that can be considered ‘designed matter’. What makes designed granular systems particularly interesting is that they do not obtain a final structure with preset properties. Instead, their elemental constituents remain unfixed, allowing them to continuously and physically recompute structural and spatial characteristics, challenging our very conception of design.     

Granular Construction: Designed Particles for Macro-Scale Architectural Structures

Designing the individual particles of granular materials defines novel material characteristics of the overall granular system. This opens up a range of possibilities for architectural applications that are fully reconfigurable as the particles are not bound to each other. Karola Dierichs and Achim Menges of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart provide an overview of recent research conducted at the Institute in this field. Autonomous construction is integrated into these systems through using either extrinsic autonomous machines or intrinsic autonomous particles.     

Material,Form and Force

Conventionally, material in architecture has been treated as the ‘servant’ of form. An iterative design process, though, that continuously integrates material, form and force has the potential to unfold a new generative logic of form-finding. This offers ways of processing the flow of forces through a material object and balancing variations of form with the organisation and behaviour of material. Toni Kotnik and Michael Weinstock present a series of experimental construction projects, developed within the Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) programme at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, that explore the intricate relationship between material, form and force. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Membrane Morphologies: Heterogeneous Forces and Articulated Material Form

Material behaviour is induced at the moment a structure, with its accompanying system of energies, is assembled. The research introduced here by Sean Ahlquist , Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, in textile manufacturing and membrane structures challenges the concept of assembly in an architectural context, where form emanates not only from the integration of forces and differentiated materials, but also through the pervasive influence of structural action at the moment of fibre construction and composition.     

Aggregate Structures: Material and Machine Computation of Designed Granular Substances

In inanimate nature, large masses of granular substances are in constant processes of formation through perpetual cycles of erosion and accretion. What if architecture was to emulate this behaviour and allow for its own continuous reconfiguration? Karola Dierichs and Achim Menges establish the notion of an ‘aggregate architecture’. Composed of large numbers of unbound yet designed granules, aggregates are based on a fundamentally different logic of construction. In contrast to assembly systems, aggregates materially compute their overall constructional configuration and shape as spatiotemporal behavioural patterns, with an equal ability for both: the stable character of a solid material and the rapid reconfigurability of a fluid. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Computational Design and Automotive Material Gestalt: Cross-disciplinary Design Research by the Mercedes-Benz Center of Advanced Design and the Institute for Computational Design (ICD), University of Stuttgart

Architecture and automotive design have developed as creative domains that are similar yet at the same time profoundly different - a condition from which a long lineage of mutual stimulation has originated. Through one of their collaborative projects, Bastian Baudy and Steffen Koehl , designer and Director, respectively, of the Mercedes-Benz Center of Advanced Design, Guest-Editor Achim Menges and Steffen Reichert , research associate at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, explain how material-oriented, evolutionary computation could bring a new perspective to automotive design.     

Self-X Materials and Structures in Nature and Technology: Bio-inspiration as a Driving Force for Technical Innovation

Over the course of 3.8 billion years of biological evolution, nature has found the answers to many engineering problems. The aim of biomimetics is to analyse and tap biology's potential as a huge reservoir for innovative solutions. Thomas Speck , Professor and Director of the Plant Biomechanics Group (PBG) at the University of Freiburg and the Freiburg Centre for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies (FIT), Jan Knippers , Professor and Head of the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart, and Olga Speck , a researcher at the PBG, scientific coordinator of FIT and manager of the Competence Network Biomimetics at Freiburg, explain how biological material systems with self-x properties are cost-efficient, multifunctional, and can be environmentally friendly; and with several billion trial runs, have surely stood the test of time.     

To a Curator of Beautiful and Healthy Lives: A Note to Myself

How might architectural thinking and processes shift over the next 35 years? How might the architect's role be redefined with shifting ethical values? Could the architect be viewed as less of a design professional and more of a curator engaged in the development of healthy holistic environments, catering for all of society's needs? DaeWha Kang , an architect from 2050, writes to his earlier self, critiquing the work that he undertook in independent practice and as a design director at Zaha Hadid Architects in the mid-2010s. He describes how his design methodologies have evolved in the intervening years.     

Material Capacity: Embedded Responsiveness

Most attempts towards climate-responsive architecture rely heavily on elaborate technical equipment superimposed on otherwise inert material constructs. In contrast, natural systems embed all the responsive capacity in the structure of the material itself. In this article, Achim Menges and Steffen Reichert present the development of biomimetic responsive material systems that require neither the supply of external energy nor any kind of mechanical or electronic control. They introduce their research on physically programming the humidity-reactive behaviour of these systems, and explain the possibilities this opens up for a strikingly simple yet truly ecologically embedded architecture in constant feedback and interaction with its surrounding environment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Manufacturing Reciprocities

Following in the footsteps of more progressive industries, digital fabrication in architecture is on the brink of shifting from task-specific computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines to more generic industrial robots. The change from machine hardware and control software developed to facilitate a specific fabrication process towards more open-ended and generic fabrication devices enables architects to design custom fabrication processes and machine-control protocols. Achim Menges and Tobias Schwinn present how these advanced machine capabilities expand the interface between design computation and physical materialisation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optioneering: A New Basis for Engagement Between Architects and Their Collaborators

Conventionally, architects are somewhat tardy when inviting engineers to join their projects. By only introducing consulting engineers to participate in the later stages of the design process, engineers are commonly assigned a fixing role. This provides little opportunity for creative engineering solutions at the generative stage. Optioneering, a new business management model, however, offers the possibility of a new collaborative method for interaction between designers and their partners. Dominik Holzer and Steven Downing describe how a research project between the Spatial Information Research Laboratory (SIAL) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the engineering firm Arup investigated the capability of this new form of collaboration. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Four Decades of Open Building Implementation: Realising Individual Agency in Architectural Infrastructures Designed to Last

The ‘open building’ approach grew out of research and early projects starting in the 1960s, aimed at overcoming the rigidity of the prevailing top-down housing process in the Netherlands. Geared to ensuring user control and sustainability in the built stock, it involves coordinating stakeholders in the real estate development process, enabling variety and change to become efficient. Architect, researcher and educator Stephen Kendall explains the approach and describes pioneering projects in Europe, Japan, China, the US and Russia, as well as detailing instances around the world where it has become part of public policy.     

Maps to Hack,Synchronise and Decipher: Unseen Cartographies of Rio

As a young architect in the 1990s, Gabriel Duarte , now an architecture professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, worked on the Favela-Bairro initiative. Here he describes how that experience of mapping and designing informal settlements proved formative, informing the New Cartographies research project that his practice, CAMPO, has undertaken to informally map Rio's physical and social transformations in the run up to 2016.