Additive Robotic Fabrication of Complex Timber Structures

The project described here, Additive Robotic Fabrication of Complex Timber Structures, investigates the potential and innovative methods for robot based assembly of complex wooden structures in the construction industry. Since 2012, in the framework of the National Research Programme "Resource Wood" (NRP 66)1, the ETH Zürich2 in cooperation with the Bern University of Applied Science3 has pursued the approach of industrially manufacturing non-standardized systems with digital fabrication. In that context material-specific and constructive aspects of wood assembly are combined in a continuous digital design and manufacturing process. In contrast to traditional approaches, for instance, mechanical processing of individual components and manual assembly, a robot based set-up as a further step in the pre-assembly is being investigated. This research approach is based on the assumption that efficient lightweight support structures can be manufactured from simple wood components of inferior quality or even from waste or left over materials. The first experiments with spatial wood assembly4 in connection with new types of adhesive and construction methods have been successfully carried out in several studies and with full scale prototypes.