Newcastle University

Jan Knippers, Prof. Dr. Ing.

• Partner and co-founder of Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering; Head of Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (itke) University of Stuttgart
• Keynote Lecture: Fibres Rethought - Towards Novel Constructional Articulation

Jan Knippers specialises in complex parametrical generated structures for roofs and façades, as well as the use of innovative materials such as glass-fibre reinforced polymers. Since 2000, Jan Knippers is Head of the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (itke) at the Faculty for Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Stuttgart and involved in many research projects on fiber based materials and biomimetics in architecture. He is also partner and co-founder of Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering with offices in Stuttgart, New York City (since 2009), and Berlin (since 2014). The focus of their work is on efficient structural design for international and architecturally demanding projects. Jan Knippers completed his studies of civil engineering at the Technical University of Berlin in 1992 with the award of a PhD.

Keynote Lecture: 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.