The bioinspired pavilion showcases how novel co-design processes that account concurrently for geometrical, material, structural, productional, environmental and aesthetic requirements, together with advanced robotic fabrication techniques applied to natural materials, are capable to generate a unique architecture that is at the same time ecological and expressive. The distinctive, intricate surface appearance of the structural flax elements is evocative of both vernacular examples of latticework and biological systems. The research developments relating to the computational process, the robotic fabrication as well as the new material system was developed by an interdisciplinary team of ITECH students and ICD/ITKE researchers at the University of Stuttgart and was validated by the fabrication of a first series of prototypes of the natural fibre components. The production data was then generated and passed to the project´s industrial partner FibR GmbH Stuttgart for the production of the 15 structural components. For the next 5 years, the livMatS Pavilion will serve as an outdoor lecture room at the University of Freiburg, especially for the Cluster of Excellence "Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Material Systems (livMatS)”, which uses the Botanic Garden within the concept of “Learning from nature in Nature” as a research and teaching site.

For more information:  https://www.itke.uni-stuttgart.de/research/icd-itke-research-pavilions/livMatS-pavilion-2020-21/