Abstract
Recent advancements in structural engineering, computational design, and digital fabrication, as well as a growing awareness for sustainable construction, have led to a renaissance of structural timber in architecture. Its favourable elastic properties allow bending of timber for use in free-form curved beam structures. Such complex geometries necessitate a high degree of prefabrication enabled by the machinability of timber and established digital fabrication methods. In parallel, cross-laminated timber (CLT) offers high dimensional stability and biaxial load-bearing behaviour; however, it has predominantly found use in standardised, rectilinear geometries. Only recently, has curved CLT drawn interest in the building industry as it provides advantageous structural performance due to its inherent curvature in combination with surface-active typologies. These properties add to the formal and structural potential for the design of slender and lightweight structures. Further, curved plates structures made from CLT offer high structural performance and present an alternative for free-form structures typically constructed from less sustainable building materials.
This research presents an integrated design and modelling framework for the use of single curved CLT components in multi-component, surface-active structures. The inherent geometric complexity of curved parts leads to a challenge on three interdependent levels: 1. Global design and interplay of components. 2. Curvature and material build-up of components. 3. Adaptive connection strategies for structural connections of multiple curved components. Architectural requirements, structural feedback and fabrication constraints inform these interdependencies. Thus, a sophisticated process is shown that integrates the parametric adaption of the design parameters. The modelling approach and construction system were validated through the design and construction of a 14 m tall tower structure serving as landmark and hiking shelter.
L. Aldinger, S. Bechert and D. Wood—Co-Authorship.
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12 February 2020
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution and support from industry partners: Blumer Lehmann AG and Lehmann Holzwerk AG, Katharina Lehmann, David Riggenbach, Stefan Bischoff, and Kai Strehlke, and scientific research partners: Laboratory of Applied Wood Materials, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) & Wood Materials Science and the Institute for Building Materials, ETH Zürich, Dr. Markus Rüggeberg, Philippe Grönquist, Prof. Ingo Burgert.
Funding
Funding for the research and demonstrator was provided by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU Az. 34714/01), Innosuisse – Swiss Innovation Agency (KTI 25114.1), University of Stuttgart, GettyLab, Remstal Gartenschau 2019, and the municipality of Urbach, Germany.
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Aldinger, L., Bechert, S., Wood, D., Knippers, J., Menges, A. (2020). Design and Structural Modelling of Surface-Active Timber Structures Made from Curved CLT - Urbach Tower, Remstal Gartenschau 2019. In: Gengnagel, C., Baverel, O., Burry, J., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Weinzierl, S. (eds) Impact: Design With All Senses. DMSB 2019. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29829-6_33
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