Parallel Paths of Inquiry (2021-04)¶

DFAB HOUSE, a multi-technology demonstrator of digital fabrication in architecture, integrates six full-scale novel construction technologies into a three-story residential building for the first time (Graser et al. 2020) (Figure 1). Rather than a mere showcase of individual digital fabrication technologies, it explores how their synthesis across interfaces can drive the process of architectural design. This account focuses on the co-development of its most interrelated subsystems: Spatial Timber Assemblies (Adel et al. 2018; Thoma et al. 2018) and the Lightweight Translucent Facade (DFAB HOUSE 2020). Each of the subsystems fulfills specific design objectives: the timber structure demonstrates cooperative robotic assembly and its degrees of freedom, and optimizes structural performance and material use; the facade combines thermal performance and daylighting, allows a non-planar geometry optimal for prestressing, and creates an outward perception of the timber frame. However, these two subsystems perform synergistically. The stiffness of the irregular, triangulated timber frame relies on precision and variability of orientations, two strengths of nonstandard robotic fabrication and assembly routines, and permits employing a pliable, translucent membrane facade. Compression studs counterbalance the tensile forces of the facade system allowing its mass and footprint to be minimized