Buga Wood Pavilion

Bundesgart tens schau, Heilbronn 2019 ICD/ITKE UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART

BUGA WOODEN PAVILION

new approach to digital timber construction

This segmented shell structure was developed by the Institute for Computational Design ICD and Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design ITKE at the University of Stuttgart for Bundesgartenschau exhibition in Heilbronn in 2019. It shows the potential of digital timber constructions. The 30 m large shell was prefabricated from 376 unique segments with 17,000 different fi nger joints, therefore creating a big 3D puzzle, with a precision of less than 1 mm thanks to robotic fabrication. You can fi t them together with no need of any glue, screws or bolts, the geometry of the fi ngers makes them fi t together and the connection practically disappears.

The construction concept is based on almost 10 years of research of the morphological principles of sea urchins. One of them, the sand dollar, has the same structural logic and was studied for this purpose. His skeleton is made up of several plates interconnected through a biological equivalent of our fi nger joints. The pavilion is using the same structural technology as the Forst Pavilion in Schwäbisch Gmünd which was built in 2014. The extraordinary biomimetic principle LESS MATERIAL BY HAVING MORE FORM enables us to achieve a three times bigger span while using the same quantity of timber and preserving the rebuildability and reusability. Double curved geometry works as a form of active construction and fi nger joints between the plates follow the principles from the edges of sea urchins.

Wood is one of the oldest materials for building construction we have, and at the same time the only fully sustainable material: fully renewable, recyclable, has a negative footprint. It´s also in the south of Germany the only available resource. In Germany is still 31% of land covered by forests, which gives it a big potential to use local material with such quality attributes. Wood has even remarkable mechanical properties, which allows it to become a high tech construction system, which is very interesting in such an industrial region as south of Germany.

Achim Menges

Thanks to effective scientifi cal ecological timber construction is the amount of material reduced in comparison with Forst Pavilion to only 38 kg/m2. The whole pre-fabricated pavilion was assembled on-site in 10 days. The research on digital timber construction continues in the context of the new Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture” at the University of Stuttgart.

Those high level of integration allows us to create something that is architecturally interesting but on the other hand incredibly effective.

Achim Menges