Timber Architecture

Research Area

In the timber research area we explore, establish and explain meaningful and novel epistemic relationships in the field of computational wood architecture and robotic timber construction. As such, we pro-actively engage and work not only with colleagues from various academic fields but also with multi-faceted stakeholders across industry and society. Finally we integratively develop computational wood building systems and design methods together with flexible robotic fabrication and construction processes with the goal to enable game-changing innovation in the wood building sector.

Related Research Tools

Virtual Robot

ABxM

TIM – Flexible Robotic Timber Construction Platform

CNC Industrial Robotics Platform

Timber Pre-Fabrication Platform

Selected Publications

  1. 2022

    1. Bucklin, O., Menges, A., Amtsberg, F., Drexler, H., Rohr, A., & Krieg, O. D. (2022). Mono-material wood wall: Novel building envelope using subtractive manufacturing of timber profiles to improve thermal performance and airtightness of solid wood construction. Energy and Buildings, 254(111597), Article 111597. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.111597

  2. 2021

    1. Orozco, L., Krtschil, A., Wagner, H. J., Bechert, S., Amtsberg, F., Skoury, L., Knippers, J., & Menges, A. (2021). Design Methods for Variable Density, Multi-Directional Composite Timber Slab Systems for Multi-Storey. In V. Stojakovic & B. Tepavcevic (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th eCAADe Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 303--312). Cumincad. http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/ecaade2021_284
    2. Wagner, H. J., Garufi, D., Schwinn, T., Wood, D. M., & Menges, A. (2021). Three-Dimensional Fibre Placement in Wood for connections and reinforcements in timber structures. In S. A. Behnejad, G. A. R. Parke, & O. A. Samavati (Eds.), Proceedings of the IASS Annual Symposium 2020/21 and the 7th International Conference on Spatial Structures. IASS.
    3. Bucklin, O., Menges, A., Krieg, O., Drexler, H., Rohr, A., & Amtsberg, F. (2021). Mono-Material Wood Wall: Digital Fabrication of Performative Wood Envelopes. Journal of Facade Design and Engineering, 9(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.7480/jfde.2021.1.5398.
    4. Qi, Y., Zhong, R., Kaiser, B., Tahouni, Y., Wagner, H. J., Verl, A., & Menges, A. (2021). Augmented Accuracy: A Human-Machine Integrated Adaptive Fabrication Workflow for Bamboo. In V. Stojakovic & B. Tepavcevic (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th eCAADe Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 345--354). Cumincad. http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/ecaade2021_169

  3. 2020

    1. Wagner, H. J., Chai, H., Guo, Z., Menges, A., & Yuan, P. F. (2020). Towards an On-site Fabrication System for Bespoke , Unlimited and Monolithic Timber Slabs. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Las Vegas, NV, USA (Virtual) - Workshop on Construction and Architecture Robotics, 2020. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.14098.68802
    2. Bucklin, O., Menges, A., Drexler, H., & Haag, T. (2020). Development of a Mono-Material Wood Wall System: Activating Digitally Fabricated Air Cavities for High-Performance Solid Timber Construction. Technology|Architecture + Design, 4:2 Matter. https://doi.org/10.1080/24751448.2020.1804760
    3. Wagner, H. J., Alvarez, M., Groenewolt, A., & Menges, A. (2020). Towards digital automation flexibility in large-scale timber construction: integrative robotic prefabrication and co-design of the BUGA Wood Pavilion. Construction Robotics, 120, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41693-020-00038-5
    4. Wagner, H. J., Alvarez, M., Kyjanek, O., Bhiri, Z., Buck, M., & Menges, A. (2020). Flexible and transportable robotic timber construction platform – TIM. Automation in Construction, 120, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103400

  4. 2019

    1. Alvarez, M., Wagner, H. J., Groenewelt, A., Krieg, O., Kyjanek, O., Aldinger, L., Bechert, S., Sonntag, D., Menges, A., & Knippers, J. (2019). The buga wood pavilion - Integrative interdisciplinary advancements of digital timber architecture. In K. Bieg, D. Briscoe, & C. Odom (Eds.), ACADIA – Ubiquity and Autonomy - Proceedings of the 39th ACADIA Conference 2019 (pp. 490--499).

  5. 2018

    1. Krieg, O., Bechert, S., Groenewelt, A., Horn, R., Knippers, J., & Menges, A. (2018). Affordances of Complexity: Evaluation of a Robotic Production Process for Segmented Timber Shell Structures. WCTE Proceedings of the 2018 World Conference on Timber Engineering, 1--8.
    2. Horn, R., Groenewelt, A., Krieg, O., & Gantner, J. (2018). Ökobilanzierung von Lebensende-Optionen, Szenarien im bauphysikalischen Kontext am Beispiel segmentierter Holzschalenkonstruktionen. Bauphysik, 5/2018, Article 5/2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/bapi.201800007
    3. Bechert, S., Groenewelt, A., Krieg, O., Menges, A., & Knippers, J. (2018). Structural Performance of Construction Systems for Segmented Timber Shell Structures. IASS – Creativity in Structural Design Proceedings of the IASS Symposium 2018.

  6. 2015

    1. Krieg, O. D., Schwinn, T., Menges, A., Li, J.-M., Knippers, J., Schmitt, A., & Schwieger, V. (2015). Biomimetic lightweight timber plate shells : computational integration of robotic fabrication, architectural geometry and structural design. Advances in Architectural Geometry 2014, 109–125. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11418-7_8

  7. 2009

    1. Menges, A. (2009). Performative Wood: Integral Computational Design for Timber Constructions. ReForm( ) - Building a Better Tomorrow Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), 22–25.
    2. Menges, A. (2009). Performative Wood: Integral Computational Design for Timber Construction. ReForm( ): Building a Better Tomorrow - Proceedings of the 29th Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design In Architecture (ACADIA), 66–74.

Contact Information

This image shows Hans Jakob Wagner

Hans Jakob Wagner

M.Sc. ITECH (Dist.), B.Sc. (Arch.)

Research Group Leader | Computational Wood Architecture

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