Biomimetics and robotics for the Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall 2014

The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall is an exhibition pavilion designed at the University of Stuttgart which is an integrated model of computational design and manufacture robotic.

The project shows the opportunity to use renewable resources, in this case the wood, to create an innovative construction with the aid of robotic systems. It is in fact, the first building in the world with a support structure consisting entirely of slabs multilayer of beech accomplished by robot.

The innovative aspects that characterize the project can be defined in the following five points.

• Design biomimetic: the biomimetic design characterizes the outer casing of the construction that takes the form of a shell made ​​through a modular system inspired to the skeleton of sea urchins (the skeleton consists of elements of calcium carbonate joined by microscopic joints along the edges).

• Computational Design: the process of simulation and optimization allows you to draw the shapes of the project automatically, eliminating manual drawing of each element.

• Manufacture robotics: it included the automated manufacturing of 243 slabs multilayer of beech and 7600 joints that make up the interlocking connections responsible for the structural stability. These were made by a seven-axis machine easily adaptable to the generation of complex geometries. The process of prefabrication of components was completed in just 3 weeks.

• Three-dimensional scan of the structure : completed the construction, it is subjected to the analysis of the structural behavior by scanning three-dimensional.

• Structural and functional innovation: the system of slabs multilayer of beech forms the outer casing and the structure at the same time. The structural loads are transferred from the edges of the elements in the joints, allowing the construction of a wooden building with light plates with a thickness of only 5 cm.

The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall is organized in two distinct spatial zones connected by an intermediate space: the input space and the main exhibition space are defined with a domed structure, constituted by plates polygonal convex, while the space of the transition is the result of a spatial contraction saddle-shaped, whose coating consists of plates polygonal concave. The main exhibition area is the wider part of the building with height of 6 meters and orieented towards the landscape with a large window.

The project was developed by the Institute for Computational Design, the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design, Engineering and the Institute of Geodesy and realized in collaboration with Mullerblaustein Holzbau GmbH.