Robotic coreless filament winding with natural fibres and bio-based resin systems offers potential solutions to address productivity and sustainability challenges in the construction sector. Their use in modular, prefabricated structures enables efficient, controlled, and eco-friendly production, yielding high-quality building components with minimal production waste. Plant fibres like flax provide good strength and stiffness while requiring less non-renewable energy compared to traditional fibres like glass or carbon. This research focuses on the use and implementation of flax fibre for coreless filament wound structural components by describing the conceptualization, design, fabrication, and assembly of a full-scale architectural demonstrator, the livMats Pavilion.

Novel fabrication methods are necessary to capitalize on the high strength-to-weight ratio of composites engineered for construction applications. This paper presents prefabrication strategies for geometrically-complex building elements wound out of Glass and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (G/CFRP). The research focuses on Robotic Coreless Filament Winding (RCFW), a technology that eliminates formwork, proposing upscaling and industrialization strategies combined with updated robot programming and control methods. Our application addresses the prefabrication of hyperboloid, tubular components with differentiated geometry and fiber layout. We examine how the proposed methods enabled the industrial prefabrication of a building-scale G/CFRP dome structure and discuss the industrial process relative to key fabrication parameters. Highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of the research, we envisage future directions and applications for RCFW in construction. Overall, we find that synergy between academia and industry is essential to meeting research, productivity, and certification goals in the rather conservative building industry.

Urban Microclimate Canopy is a digitally fabricated fiber glass structure supporting climbing plants in order to explore new ways of integrating vegetation in densely built urban environments. A prototype was designed and manufactured in the context of an interdisciplinary studio with master’s students following an approach of research by design. Varying the assembly of winding frames and fiber weaving syntax generates diverse geometric shape and structural performance. For two short-term exhibitions, ivy plants were temporarily installed in the structure. This first step was followed with a reflection of systematic integration of the growth processes of climbing plants and parametric design. An iterative solution is given, consisting of a feedback loop linking the design of the technical structure, the simulation of plant growth, and the simulation of the environmental effects of the hybrid structure. To achieve this a novel framework for simulating twining plant’s growth on network-like structures is presented: external stimuli define a cone-shaped circumnutation space (searching space model) which results in a climbing path (climbing steps model). The framework is constructed to integrate improved individual functions (such as stimuli of circumnutation) for better simulation results. To acquire more knowledge about interactions between the plants and the fiber structure, the prototype was installed permanently and planted with three different climbing plants, representing different climbing mechanisms.

The Elytra Filament Pavilion celebrates a truly integrative approach to design and engineering. As a centerpiece of the V and A's Engineering Season it demonstrates how architectural design can unfold from a synergy of structural engineering, environmental engineering, and production engineering, resulting in unique spatial and aesthetic qualities. The cellular canopy grows from an on-site fabrication nucleus, and it does so in response to patterns of inhabitation of the garden over time, driven by real-time sensing data. The pavilion seeks to forecast how the so-called fourth industrial revolution of robotics and cyber-physical production systems enables the emergence of new structural and material systems. The fibrous composite structure of the installation only consists of two basic cells, the canopy cells and the column cells. The production itself is an innovative robotic winding process developed by the project team, which in contrast to most other composite fabrication processes does not require any mold, and thus reduces waste to a minimum.

Textiles are widely used in architecture for tensile structures, as they are lightweight and can easily span large distances. These structures typically require an external framework for a support. Inflatable structures are self-supporting but are limited to relatively simple forms or require complex and predetermined cut patterns. The development of an adaptive and programmable textile system with an integrative method for pneumatic activation would create a novel self-supporting structure with high degree of design and architectural potential. This creates a highly integrative hybrid system where the generic pneumatic membranes are constrained by the differentiated knitted textile skin that is stretched in several directions under air pressure. This allows for an innovative, lightweight, easily transportable design, where the preprogrammed knitting pattern defines the structure, geometry and formation, activated under pneumatic pressure.

Process-based biomimetics focuses on the transfer of biological principles to architectural construction. To realise the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014 -15, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Valentin Koslowski, Achim Menges, Marshall Prado, Gundula Schieber and Lauren Vasey of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, sensor-driven robotic fabrication was combined with advanced design computation and simulation. This enabled the construction of an architectural fibre structure on a pneumatic mould, drawing on the complex design of the web of a water spider.

The paper presents a bottom-up design process based on the transfer of biomimetic design principles and digital fabrication strategies for modular fibre-based structures, as demonstrated on a full-scale prototype pavilion. Following the analysis of the structural principles of the beetle elytra, the material differentiation and the morphologic principles of the biological role model are transferred into design and fabrication strategies. Simultaneously, developments of a coreless robotic winding method for glass and carbon fibre reinforced composite elements are incorporated into the design process. The computational set-up developed for the entire workflow is presented, showing the integration of structural analysis with digital simulation, which enables the automatic generation of the robotic winding syntax for individually differentiated components. The investigations, simulation, fabrication and assembly process, which led to the realisation of a highly efficient lightweight architectural prototype, are explained in the current paper.

This paper presents the production and development of an adaptive robotically fabricated fiber composite compression shell with pneumatic formwork as a case study for investigating a generative behavioral design model and an adaptive, online mode of production. The project builds off of previous research at the University of Stuttgart on lightweight fiber composite structures which attempts to reduce the necessary formwork for fabrication while simultaneously incorporating structural, material and fabrication logics into an integrative computational design tool. This paper discusses the design development and fabrication workflow of the project, as well a set of strategies which were developed for online robotic programming in response to live sensor data.

The ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Achim Menges, Stefana Parascho, Marshall Prado and Tobias Schwinn of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, is based on biological lightweight construction principles. It demonstrates how the development of integrative processes of design computation, simulation and robotic fabrication enable the simultaneous exploration of novel design possibilities, constructional effectiveness and robustness through the expression of material characteristics.

Being natural lightweight constructions, elytra of beetles constitute promising role models for biomimetic development. In 2014, a multi-disciplinary team led by scientists from the University of Stuttgart constructed a research pavilion in order to evaluate fi ber composites for architecture and to develop fabrication methods for fi ber-reinforced polymer structures. Functional principles of the elytra of the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) and the Green tortoise beetle (Cassida viridis) were analyzed, abstracted and transferred into a modular pavilion. Two collaborating industrial robots were employed to wind 36 individual glass and carbon fi ber-reinforced elements, which were assembled into the fi nal prototype.

Research pavilions can serve as architectural scale demonstrations for the materialization of experimental forms and structures. Pavilions seek to prove and change methods of design and construction mechanisms in order to achieve desires such as material efficiency, novel spatial qualities and performative needs. The case of the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14 highlights the use of fiber composites in order to achieve a core-less filament winding modular system from bio-inspired lightweight structures through robotic fabrication. This paper describes the multi-disciplinary design and construction process of this pavilion that created a structure of out 36 unique components.

How can design computation work as an interface between the virtual design space and the physical realization space, while forming a point of confluence within a multidisciplinary design and construction methodology? In an integrated design process for fiber composite structures in architecture (one based on morphogenesis of fibrous structures in nature), form generation and materialization are highly interrelated thereby leading to a synergy of form and materiality. This paper examines the framework of integrative computational design methodologies incorporating material, structure, fabrication and morphogenetic principles for the design development and digital fabrication of lightweight fiber-reinforced composite components. This process is discussed through the case study, ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14, including project-specific applications and the implementation of computational tools. 1

How can design computation work as an interface between the virtual design space and the physical realization space, while forming a point of confluence within a multidisciplinary design and construction methodology?In an integrated design process for fiber composite structures in architecture (one based on morphogenesis of fibrous structures in nature), form generation and materialization are highly interrelated thereby leading to a synergy of form and materiality.This paper examines the framework of integrative computational design methodologies incorporating material, structure, fabrication and morphogenetic principles for the design development and digital fabrication of lightweight fiber-reinforced composite components.This process is discussed through the case study, ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14, including project-specific applications and the implementation of computational tools.

Spacer fabrics are 3D warp-knitted fabrics, which have a volumetric structure. Together with the capacity to differentially stretch and contract, these materials allow three dimensional which is specific to spacer fabrics. The authors present a computational design methodology which enables the generation of form based on these material characteristics and local, regional and global material manipulations. Such a process can not only generate functional surface articulations, but also control the forming of spatial textile geometries. As a resin infused composite structure the spacer fabric can serve as architectural construction and building envelope. This new methodology to develop fibrous and textile morphology is contrary to a traditional hierarchical design process, which is based on a linear strategy from design to implementation. The investigation methods are based on analogue material experimentation and integration of the materials behaviour into a computational design process. Such a feedback process can unfold potential material morphologies and performances of spacer fabric as an architectural material.