Digital Building Technologies 3D prints Concrete Choreography for Origen Festival in Switzerland
Nine, individually designed, 2.7 meter tall concrete columns [video]
A collaboration between Digital Building Technologies and the Origen Festival in Riom, Switzerland, the installation Concrete Choreography consists of nine, individually designed, 2.7m tall columns. Each column is concrete 3D printed at full height in 2.5 hours with the process developed at ETH Zurich with the support of NCCR DFAB.
Students of the Master of Advanced Studies in Digital Fabrication and Architecture explored the unique possibilities of layered extrusion printing, demonstrating the potential of computational design and digital fabrication for future concrete construction.
Based on a large robotic arm extrusion systems, the same used for many parts of the DFAB House project, this novel fabrication process allows the production of concrete elements without the need for any formwork. In addition, one-of-a-kind designs with complex geometries can be fabricated in a fully automated manner. Hollow concrete structures are printed in a way where the material can be strategically used only where needed, allowing a more sustainable approach to concrete architecture.
Computationally designed material ornament and surface texture exemplify the versatility and significant aesthetic potential 3D concrete printing holds when used in large-scale structures.
PROJECT CREDITS: MAS DFAB in Architecture and Digital Fabrication | ETH Zurich Teaching Team: Ana Anton, Patrick Bedarf, Angela Yoo (Digital Building Technologies), Timothy Wangler (Physical Chemistry of Building Materials) Students: Antonio Barney, Aya Shaker Ali, Chaoyu Du, Eleni Skevaki, Jonas Van den Bulcke, Keerthana Udaykumar, Nicolas Feihl, Nik Eftekhar Olivo, Noor Khader, Rahul Girish, Sofia Michopoulou, Ying-Shiuan Chen, Yoana Taseva, Yuta Akizuki, Wenqian Yang Origen Foundation: Giovanni Netzer, Irene Gazzillo, Guido Luzio, Flavia Kistler Research Partners: Prof. Robert J. Flatt, Lex Reiter, Timothy Wangler (Physical Chemistry of Building Materials) Technical Support: Michael Lyrenmann, Philippe Fleischmann, Andreas Reusser, Heinz Richner Supported by : Debrunner Acifer Bewehrungen AG, LafargeHolcim, Elotex, Imerys Aluminates This research was supported by the NCCR Digital Fabrication, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (NCCR Digital Fabrication Agreement 51NF40-141853).
