The BUGA Fibre Pavilion offers visitors a forward-looking architectural experience and a glimpse of future construction. It builds on biomimetic research in architecture at the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart.
The pavilion demonstrates how combining cutting-edge computational technologies with constructional principles found in nature enables the development of novel and digital building systems. The pavilion’s load-bearing structure is robotically produced from advanced fiber composites only. This structure is not only highly effective and exceptionally lightweight, but it also provides a distinctive yet authentic architectural expression and a rich spatial experience. The BUGA Fibre Pavilion aims to transfer the biological principle of load-adapted and thus differentiated fiber composite systems into architecture. Manmade composites, such as the glass- or carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics that were used for this building, are ideally suited for such an approach because they share their fundamental characteristics with natural composites. It shows how an interdisciplinary exploration of biological principles together with the latest computational technologies can lead to a truly novel and genuinely digital fiber composite building system. Only a few years ago, this pavilion would have been impossible to design or build.
The pavilion is made from more than 150.000 meters of spatially arranged glass- and carbon fibers. They were all individually designed and placed, which is very hard to achieve with a typical linear workflow and established production technologies. Thus, it requires a novel co-design approach, where architectural design, structural engineering and robotic fabrication are developed in continuous computational feedback. In this way, the fiber arrangement, density and orientation of each building component can be individually calibrated, structurally tuned and architecturally articulated, while remaining directly producible.
The building components are produced by robotic, coreless filament winding, a novel additive manufacturing approach pioneered and developed at the University of Stuttgart. Fibrous filaments are freely placed between two rotating winding scaffolds by a robot. During this process, the predefined shape of the building component emerges from the interaction of the filaments entirely, eliminating the need for any mold or core. This allows for bespoke form and individual fiber layup for each component without any economic disadvantage. In addition, there is no production waste or material off-cuts. During manufacturing, a lattice of translucent glass fibers is generated, onto which the black carbon fibers are placed where they are structurally needed. This results in highly load-adapted components with a highly distinct architectural appearance.
Full production took place at the project’s industrial partner FibR GmbH. Each component takes between four to six hours to make from around 1.000 meters of glass fiber and 1.600 meters of carbon fiber on average. The pavilion covers a floor area of around 400 square meters and achieves a free span of more than 23 meters. It is enclosed by a transparent, mechanically pre-stressed ETFE membrane. The primary load bearing structure is made from 60 bespoke fiber composite components only. With 7.6 kilograms per square meter, it is exceptionally lightweight, approximately five times lighter than a more conventional steel structure. Elaborate testing procedures required for full approval showed that a single fibrous component can take up to 250 kilonewtons of compression force. The pavilion shows how an integrative approach to computational design and robotic fabrication enables the development of novel, digital fiber composite building systems that are compliant with the stringent German building regulations, lightweight, structurally efficient and architecturally expressive.
The pavilion translates the innovation on a technical level into a unique architectural experience. The black carbon filament bundles, wrapping around the translucent glass fiber lattice-like flexed muscles, create a stark contrast in texture that is highlighted by the pavilion’s fully transparent skin. This distinctive architectural articulation is further intensified by the gradient from sparser carbon filaments at the top towards their denser application on the slenderest components that meet the ground.
While most visitors may not have seen anything like it before, the pavilion exposes its underlying design principles in an explicable yet expressive way. Its unfamiliar yet authentic architectural articulation evokes new ways of digital making, which no longer remain a futuristic proposition but already have become a tangible reality.
PROJECT PARTNERS
ICD Institute for Computational Design, University of Stuttgart
Prof. Achim Menges, Serban Bodea, Niccolo Dambrosio, Monika Göbel, Christoph Zechmeister
ITKE Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design, University of Stuttgart
Prof. Jan Knippers, Valentin Koslowski Marta Gil Pérez, Bas Rongen
with support of:
Rasha Alshami, Karen Andrea Antorvaeza Paez, Cornelius Carl, Sophie Collier, Brad Elsbury, James Hayward, Marc Hägele, You-Wen Ji, Ridvan Kahraman, Laura Kiesewetter, Xun Li, Grzegorz Lochnicki, Francesco Milano, Seyed Mobin Moussavi, Marie Razzhivina, Sanoop Sibi, Zi Jie Tan, Naomi Kris Tashiro, Babasola Thomas, Vaia Tsiokou, Sabine Vecvagare, Shu Chuan Yao
FibR GmbH, Stuttgart
Moritz Dörstelmann, Ondrej Kyjanek, Philipp Essers, Philipp Gülke
with support of:
Leonard Balas, Robert Besinger, Elaine Bonavia, Yen-Cheng Lu
Bundesgartenschau Heilbronn 2019 GmbH
Hanspeter Faas, Oliver Toellner
PROJECT BUILDING PERMIT PROCESS
Landesstelle für Bautechnik
Dr. Stefan Brendler, Dipl.-Ing. Steffen Schneider
Proof Engineer
Dipl.-Ing. Achim Bechert, Dipl.-Ing. Florian Roos
DITF German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Götz T. Gresser, Pascal Mindermann
PLANNING PARTNERS
Belzner Holmes Light-Design, Stuttgart
Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Hollubarsch
BIB Kutz GmbH & Co.KG, Karlsruhe
Dipl.- Ing. Beatrice Gottlöber
Transsolar Climate Engineering, Stuttgart
Prof. Thomas Auer
Frauenhofer-Institut ICT
Dipl.-Ing. Elisa Seiler
PROJECT SUPPORT
State of Baden-Wuerttemberg
University of Stuttgart
Baden-Württemberg Stiftung
GETTYLAB
Forschungsinitiative Zukunft Bau
Leichtbau BW
Pfeifer GmbH
Ewo GmbH
Fischer Group