Project information
Performative morphology denotes the capacity of a natural or artificial material system to adjust specifically to system-external and system-internal conditions through morphological differentiation. This level of differentiation is emblematic for natural systems, where a high degree of morphological variation, and consequently of functionality. In biology high performance is achieved with relatively minimal material input. Here, matter and energy are utilized and produced through natural processes optimization that constitute primary role models for research into morphogenesis in architecture. In biology, matter and energy are used in supply and demand chains where interactions of simple physical and chemical building blocks give rise to morphology and structural performance able to negotiate various, potentially even contrary, fitness criteria, through variation and redundancy. Natural structures exhibit self-similarity and local adaptation of their geometric, physical and chemical properties.
It is the task of architectural design research to tease out which of these principles, so ubiquitous in the natural world, are suitable design drivers. This research ambition is contextualized by an unprecedented increase of technological possibilities, for advancing architectural design. Building on advances in computational design and simulation, fabrication processes as well as major developments in material science, the preconditions for a meaningful transfer of relationships between form and function in natural systems into architecture are more favorable than ever. The research into plant-based composite material systems places emphasis on the development of integrative computational processes of form generation that are informed by parameters of biological morphology and processes, material behavior, structural performance, as well as robotic fabrication, life-cycle and construction process reversibility.
The research explores a feed-back loop emblematic of the Anthropocene: what has started with the development of technical composite materials and a sprawling composite industry is now continued in the construction domain as computational fabrication makes possible the engineering of new structures utilizing natural fibrous materials. For the first time in our research, the flax fiber in the reinforced polymer is sourced from European renewable resources.
Credits
Research Team
Prof. AA Dipl.(Hons) Achim Menges – ICD, University of Stuttgart
Serban Bodea, Niccolo Dambrosio, Christoph Zechmeister
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Knippers – ITKE, University of Stuttgart
Marta Gil-Perez, Bas Rongen