Abstract - Jan Knippers
Fibres Rethought - Towards Novel Constructional Articulation
With the 2012 ICD/ITKE research pavilion a series of demonstrator buildings was launched with the idea of developing fabrication processes for fibre composite materials. These are based on coreless filament winding and relevant for applications in architecture, as they do not require complex formwork and are capable of adapting to the varying geometries of the individual constructions.
From the outset, these projects were accompanied by an analysis of biological structures. The aim was not so much a direct application of biological insights to architecture as a comparison of the principles underlying the creation of structural forms. A common feature of natural systems is that they use fibres to finely tune the structural performance through changes in fibre arrangement, density and orientation. The building prototypes presented in the lecture explore application potentials of novel computational design, simulation and fabrication processes in architecture.
