Integrative Design Computation: Integrating material behaviour and robotic manufacturing processes in computational design for performative wood constructions

Abstract

In contrast to most other building materials, wood is a naturally grown biological tissue. Today, the organic nature of wood is recognized as a major advantage. Wood is one of the very few naturally renewable, fully recyclable, extremely energy efficient and CO2-positive construction materials. On the other hand, compared to industrially produced, isotropic materials, the inherent heterogeneity and differentiated material makeup of wood’s anatomic structure is still considered problematic by architects and engineers alike. This is due to the fact that, even today, most design tools employed in architecture are still incapable of integrating and thus instrumentalizing the material properties and related complex behavior of wood. The research presented in this paper focuses on the development of a computational design approach that is based on the integration of material properties and characteristics. Understanding wood as a natural composite system of cellulose fibers embedded in a lignin and hemicelluloses matrix characterized by relatively high strain at failure, that is high load-bearing capacity with relatively low stiffness, the particular focus of this paper is the investigation of how the bending behavior of wood can become a generative design driver in such computational processes. In combination with the additional integration of the possibilities and constraints of robotic manufacturing processes, this enables the design and production of truly material-specific and highly performative wood architecture. The paper will provide a detailed explanation of such an integrative approach to design computation and the related methods and techniques. This is complemented by the description of three specific research projects, which were conducted as part of the overall research and all resulted in full scale prototype structures. The research projects demonstrate different approaches to the computational design integration of material behavior and robotic manufacturing constraints. Based on a solution space defined by the material itself, this enables novel ways of computationally deriving both material-specific gestalt and performative capacity of one of the oldest construction materials we have.