LANDESGARTENSCHAU EXHIBITION HALL
Landesgartenschau Schwäbisch Gmünd, 2014

The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall is an architectural demonstrator building and a showcase for the current developments in computational design and robotic fabrication for lightweight timber construction. Funded by the European Union and the state of Baden-Württemberg, the building is the first to have its primary structure entirely made of robotically prefabricated beech plywood plates. The newly developed timber construction offers not only innovative architectural possibilities; it is also highly resource efficient, with the load bearing plate structure being just 50mm thin. This is made possible through integrative computational design, simulation, fabrication and surveying methods.

The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall was conceived at the University of Stuttgart as part of the »Robotics in Timber Construction« research project and realized in collaboration with Müllerblaustein Holzbau GmbH, Landesgartenschau Schwäbisch Gmünd 2014 GmbH, the forest administration of Baden-Württemberg (ForstBW) and KUKA Robotics GmbH. The project demonstrates the new opportunities that arise from the integration of computational design, simulation and fabrication methods for performative and resource efficient constructions made from the locally available and renewable resource wood. The building introduces an innovative, robotically fabricated lightweight timber plate construction system made of beech plywood. It was developed at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD, Prof. Achim Menges), the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE, Prof. Jan Knippers), and the Institute of Engineering Geodesy (IIGS, Prof. Volker Schwieger) and realized in collaboration with Müllerblaustein Holzbau GmbH. The building is part of the biannual Landesgartenschau, where it hosts an exhibition by ForstBW. The project was partly funded by the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF) and »Forst und Holz« Baden-Württemberg as well as by the project partners.

Wood is one of the oldest building materials known to mankind. But the advent of novel robotic fabrication processes in conjunction with computational design, simulation, and surveying methods, offers entirely new design possibilities and fields of application. These form the basis for particularly performative and efficient constructions made from the locally available and renewable resource wood.

For a detailed description and more images please view:

https://www.icd.uni-stuttgart.de/projects/landesgartenschau-exhibition-hall/

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PROJECT TEAM

ICD Institute for Computational Design
Prof. A. Menges (PI), Tobias Schwinn, Oliver David Krieg

ITKE Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design
Prof. J. Knippers, Jian-Min Li

IIGS Institute of Engineering Geodesy
Prof. Volker Schwieger, Annette Schmitt

Müllerblaustein Holzbau GmbH>
Reinhold Müller, Benjamin Eisele

KUKA Roboter GmbH
Alois Buchstab, Frank Zimmermann

Landesbetrieb Forst Baden-Württemberg
Sebastian Schreiber, Frauke Brieger

Landesgartenschau Schwäbisch Gmünd 2014 GmbH
Karl-Eugen Ebertshäuser, Sabine Rieger

PROJECT FUNDING

EFRE European Union
Clusterinitiative Forst und Holz Baden Württemberg
Landesgartenschau Schwäbisch Gmünd 2014 GmbH
müllerblaustein Bauwerke GmbH
KUKA Roboter GmbH
Landesbetrieb Forst Baden-Württemberg

PROJECT SUPPORT

Adler Deutschland GmbH
Autodesk GmbH
Carlisle Construction Materials GmbH
Fagus Stiftung
Gutex H. Henselmann GmbH & Co. KG
Hess & Co. AG
MPA–Materials Testing Institute, University of Stuttgart
Leitz GmbH & Co. KG
Spax International GmbH & Co. KG