Abstract
Active bending is calling for a paradigm shift in the way structures are designed and built. It is in this context that natural materials, like bamboo, can play a significant role in the development of more sustainable and economical material practices in architecture. Here, we present the results of a two-weeks workshop held in Quito, Ecuador, that lead to the design and construction of a bending-active demonstrator entirely built with natural materials. The structure was designed by using a highly intuitive numerically form-finding approach and materialized by only employed locally processed bamboo materials and natural jute cords. This implies not only a more sustainable construction practice derived from the usage of these materials and the lack of complex formworks and high-end machinery but also a more environmentally friendly deconstruction stage where all materials constituting the structure can be recycled. The presented study serves to strategically showcase what is suggested to be called a digital vernacular approach for the design of bending-active systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Crolla, K.: Building indeterminacy modelling – the ‘ZCB Bamboo Pavilion’ as a case study on nonstandard construction from natural materials. Vis. Eng. 5(1), 178 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40327-017-0051-4
Gass, S., Drüsedau, H., Hennicke, J., Dunkelberg, K.: Bambus: Bamboo. IL, vol. 31. Institut für Leichte Flächentragwerke Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart (1985)
Hansen, L., Kim, S.: ‘COCOON’ a bamboo building with integration of digital design and low-tech construction. In: Structures and Architecture, London, UK, pp. 1159–1165 (2016)
Kotelnikova-Weiler, N., Douthe, C., Hernandez, E.L., Baverel, O., Gengnagel, C., Caron, J.-F.: Materials for actively-bent structures. Int. J. Space Struct. 28(3–4), 229–240 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1260/0266-3511.28.3-4.229
Lienhard, J.: Bending-active structures: form-finding strategies using elastic deformation in static and kinetic systems and the structural potentials therein. Forschungsberichte aus dem Institut für Tragkonstruktionen und Konstruktives Entwerfen, Universität Stuttgart, vol. 36. ITKE, Stuttgart (2014)
Lienhard, J., Alpermann, H., Gengnagel, C., Knippers, J.: Active bending: a review on structures where bending is used as a self-formation process. Int. J. Space Struct. 28(3&4), 187–196 (2013)
McNeel, R.: Associates: Grasshopper (2019a). https://www.grasshopper3d.com/
McNeel, R.: Associates: Rhinoceros (2019b). https://www.mcneel.com/
Minke, G.: Building with Bamboo. Birkhäuser, Basel (2012)
Schling, E., Kilian, M., Wang, H., Schikore, J., Pottmann, H.: Design and construction of curved support structures with repetitive parameters. In: Advances in Architectural Geometry, Gothenburg, Sweden (2018)
Seixas, M., Bina, J., Stoffel, P., Ripper, J.L., Moreira, L.E., Ghavami, K.: Active bending and tensile pantographic bamboo hybrid amphitheater structure. J. IASS 58(3), 239–252 (2017). https://doi.org/10.20898/j.iass.2017.193.872
Slabbinck, E.L.M., Körner, A., Knippers, J.: Torsion as a design driver in plate-bending-active tensile structures. In: Proceedings of the IASS Annual Symposium 2017: Interfaces: Architecture, Engineering, Science, Hamburg, Germany (2017)
Suzuki, S., Knippers, J.: ElasticSpace: a computational framework for interactive form-finding of textile hybrid structures through evolving topology networks. Int. J. Parallel Emergent Distrib. Syst. 32(Suppl. 1), S4–S14 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/17445760.2017.1390101
Suzuki, S., Knippers, J.: digital vernacular design: form-finding at the edge of realities recalibration. On imprecision and infidelity. In: Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), Mexico City, Mexico (2018)
Acknowledgements
Computational Bamboo was a demonstrator developed during the Global Summer School program of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in Quito, Ecuador, which was organized in close collaboration with the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE, Prof. Jan Knippers). The authors would like to thank the technical support offered by Yaner Luis Cangá Chavez, Andres Obregon, and Juan Edison Columba Paucar, and volunteers Byron Esteban Cadena Campos, Sophia Natalia Gualán Chacón, Gustavo Francisco Abdo Hernández, Santiago Dario Guevara Hidalgo, Karen Elizabeth Landazuri Proaño, Rafael Fernando Suárez Molina, Santiago Gabriel Miño Paz, and Nestor Emmanuel Mendoza Zambrano.
This project received great support from the Museum of Interactive Science (MIC), Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE), the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization – Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (INBAR), Sustainable Forest Management Corporation (Comafors), Fablab Zoi, Museum of Interactive Science (MIC), CODESA, Fibrobambu, and funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 642877 and Pelikano Plywood.
The presented research was conducted on the intersection between research and teaching together with students of the IAAC GSS Quito Programme. The authors would like to express their gratitude towards: Juan Francisco Mayorga Jaramillo, Valeria Latorre, Gordon Leibowitz, Valeria León, Veronica Sofia Molina, Maria Gabriela Chacon Palacios, Gisella Parra, Fausto Andres Davila Pazmiño, and Juan David Barona Trujillo.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Suzuki, S., Slabbinck, E.L.M., Knippers, J. (2020). Computational Bamboo: Digital and Vernacular Design Principles for the Construction of a Temporary Bending-Active Structure. In: Gengnagel, C., Baverel, O., Burry, J., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Weinzierl, S. (eds) Impact: Design With All Senses. DMSB 2019. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29829-6_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29829-6_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29828-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29829-6
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)