Intcdc pavilion of the University of Stuttgart

The “livMatS Pavilion” in the Botanical Garden of the University of Freiburg is made of robotically wound natural fibers. It was developed and built by students from the livMatS and IntCDC Clusters of Excellence at the Universities of Freiburg and Stuttgart.

Researchers around the world are looking for a model for a sustainable, resource-efficient alternative to conventional construction methods. In a joint project, researchers from the Universities of Freiburg and Stuttgart and Master’s students from the University of Stuttgart have now presented a concept. And built it straight away. It is a robotically wound natural fiber building that can now be admired in the Botanical Garden of the University of Freiburg. The somewhat unwieldy name “livMatS Pavilion” refers to the Freiburg research area and Cluster of Excellence “Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS)”. The pavilion is intended to illustrate how a unique bio-inspired architecture can be created by combining natural materials with advanced digital technologies.

Its supporting structure consists of robotically wound flax fibers, a further development of the institutes of the synthetically produced fiber composites used to date – such as glass and carbon fibers. Flax fibers, on the other hand, are renewable in annual harvest cycles, regionally available and biodegradable. Especially in combination with efficient lightweight construction, they could significantly reduce the ecological footprint of buildings. “Fiber composites have an excellent strength-to-weight ratio,” explains Jan Knippers from the Institute of Structures and Conceptual Design (ITKE). However, it was anything but easy to switch production from synthetic to natural fibers. “The natural fibers and their biological variability presented us researchers with new challenges in terms of computer-based design, robotic manufacturing workflows and machine control,” says Achim Menges from the Institute of Computer-Aided Design and Construction (ICD).

IntCDC, University of Stuttgart | Source: YouTube

Nature as a model for the IntCDC pavilion

The saguaro cactus and the prickly pear cactus served as inspiration for the net-like arrangement of the natural fibers and the seedless winding. Both cacti are characterized by their special wood structure. The saguaro cactus has a cylindrical skeleton that is hollow on the inside and therefore particularly light, says Thomas Speck, Director of the Botanical Garden. It consists of a net-like wooden structure, which gives the skeleton additional stability. “The tissue of the flattened side shoots of the prickly pear is also permeated by cross-linked bundles of wood fibers, which are arranged in layers and connected to each other. As a result, the tissue of the prickly pear cactus is also characterized by a particularly high load-bearing capacity,” Thomas Speck explains further.

The researchers have abstracted these network structures of the biological models and implemented them in the livMatS pavilion by “coreless winding” the natural fibers. Through this abstraction – winding or braiding processes do not exist in plants – the researchers were able to transfer the mechanical properties of the cross-linked fiber structures to the lightweight load-bearing elements of the livMatS pavilion, according to the livMatS Institute in an explanation of the process.

The supporting structure of the pavilion consists of 15 flax fiber elements prefabricated exclusively from natural fibers. A fiber keystone forms the centerpiece. The filigree surface appearance of the individual elements is reminiscent of both traditional half-timbered constructions and the biological model. The individual elements vary in their total length between 4.50 and 5.50 meters and weigh an average of just 105 kilograms. The entire fibre construction weighs only around 1.5 tons with a total surface area of 46 square meters. The construction was realized by FibR GmbH Stuttgart, one of the industrial partners in the project.

The pavilion will serve as an event venue in the future – and not least to illustrate the team’s work. The development of the structure is based on many years of collaboration between a team of architects and engineers from the ITECH Master’s degree program at the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Computer-Based Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC)” at the University of Stuttgart and biologists from the Cluster of Excellence Living. Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Material Systems (livMatS) at the University of Freiburg. (Red)

Project team:

ICD: Institute for Computational Design and Construction – Prof. Achim Menges/Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, University of Stuttgart;
ITKE: Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design – Prof. Jan Knippers/Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, University of Stuttgart
in cooperation with livMatS, University of Freiburg – Prof. Dr. Thomas Speck, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rühe

Researchers
Marta Gil Pérez, Serban Bodea, Niccolò Dambrosio, Bas Rongen, Christoph Zechmeister Project management: Katja Rinderspacher, Marta Gil Pérez, Monika Göbel

2018 to 2020: Talal Ammouri, Vanessa Costalonga Martins, Sacha Joseph Cutajar, Edith Anahi Gonzalez San Martin, Yanan Guo, James Hayward, Silvana Herrera, Jeongwoo Jang, Nicolas Kubail Kalousdian, Simon Jacob Lut, Eda Özdemir, Gabriel Rihaczek, Anke Kristina Schramm, Lasath Ryan Siriwardena, Vaia Tsiokou, Christo van der Hoven, Shu Chuan Yao

2018 to 2019: Karen Andrea Antorveza Paez, Okan Basnak, Guillaume Caussarieu, Zhetao Dong, Kurt Drachenberg, Roxana Firorella Guillen Hurtado, Ridvan Kahraman, Dilara Karademir, Laura Kiesewetter, Grzegorz Łochnicki, Francesco Milano, Yue Qi, Hooman Salyani, Nasim Sehat, Tim Stark, Zi Jie, Jake Tan, Irina Voineag