Behavioral strategies synthesizing design computation and robotic fabrication of lightweight timber plate structures

Abstract

The research described in the paper investigates the potential of behavior-based strategies, such as Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and behavioral form finding, to facilitate the synthesis of computational design and robotic fabrication with regards to performative lightweight timber plate structures. In the first part, the authors provide an overview on the related topics agent systems and planar approximation of complex geometry. In the second part, an integrative computational design methodology is presented that enables the realization of a novel construction system for timber plate structures including a custom robotic fabrication process. The last part of the paper is dedicated to the architectural case study building “Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall” that has been designed, robotically fabricated and constructed to test and evaluate this novel computational design methodology for timber plate structures.