DigitalFUTURES World Keynotes on ROBOTIC TIMBER FABRICATION

DigitalFUTURES Keynotes Series on Robotic Timber Fabrication

31 October @ 10:00am EDT/ 3:00pm CET / 10:00pm China

http://www.youtube.com/c/digitalfuturesworld/live

 Moderated by: Philip F. Yuan / Tongji University

 Presentations by:

"Material agency in wood architecture"

by Martin Self

Lecture Description:

Martin Self will present an approach to timber construction driven by the material agency of wood. He will argue that whilst the industrial standardisation of timber products is important in the commercial growth of the timber architecture sector, it also risks losing the valuable inherent and variant characteristics of wood as a natural material. Illustrated through the work of timber design-construct firm Xylotek, and academic research projects carried out at Hooke Park – the Architectural Association’s woodland campus – Martin will seek to show how the marriage of emerging digital technologies and a deep understanding of wood as a material can engender alternative approaches to its application in architecture. 

Personal bio:

Martin Self is a founding director of UK-based timber design-and-construction firm Xylotek and head of the Architectural Association’s Design + Make masters programme.  Martin Self is an engineer, geometer and educator who has specialised in innovative timber structures since 2005. Following a background in aerospace engineering, he was a founder member of Arup's Advanced Geometry Unit (2000-2006) and Director of Hooke Park (2010-2018), the Architectural Association's woodland campus for experimental timber architecture.

Key previous projects include the 2005 Serpentine Pavilion, for which he developed a pioneering application of geometric scripting for robotic fabrication; the form-finding for the Pompidou Metz timber roof at its concept design stage; tutoring the AA's summer pavilions 2006-9; and directing the design and construction of a series of timber buildings at Hooke Park that radically explore the use of locally grown wood.

"BIM to Fabrication?  Re-thinking Planning and Production of Prefab Timber"

by Fabian Scheurer

Lecture Description

Fabian Scheurer will present two recent timber projects from his practice Design-to-Production: one being the new headquarters for Swatch in Biel (CH), the other one “The Crocodile”, a housing project with 250 apartments. Even though the projects are completely different, they showcase the current challenges in matching industrialized pre-fabrication, digital planning and mass timber, and how they might be overcome by re-thinking traditional processes. 

Personal Bio

Fabian Scheurer is co-founder of Design-to-Production and leads the company’s office in Zurich. He graduated from the Technical University of Munich with a diploma in computer science and architecture and gathered professional experience as CAD-trainer, software developer, and new media consultant. In 2002 he joined Ludger Hovestadt’s CAAD group at the ETH Zurich, where he co-founded Design-to-Production as a research group to explore the connections between digital design and fabrication. In 2007 Design-to-Production teamed up with architect Arnold Walz and became a commercial consulting practice, supporting architects, engineers, and fabricators in the digital production of complex design. Over the past decade, Design-to-Production has gained some reputation for planning non-standard timber-structures like the Centre Pompidou in Metz and the Swatch Headquarter in Biel (both designed by Shigeru Ban) or the New Cambridge Mosque (by Marks Barfield). Recently they have started to look at more standard buildings and how to develop new digital processes for prefab timber structures.