DIGITAL FABRICATION & DEPLOYABLE STRUCTURES | TU BERLIN (GERMANY) | 2017 | TEAM: TU BERLIN (GERMANY), ETSAE (SPAIN) | TYPOLOGY: HABITAT/ DIGITAL

The workshop “Digital Fabrication & Deployable Structures” took place in the Institute for Architecture at the Technical University of Berlin between February and March of 2017. The objective is to develop a theoretical-practical course focused on the relationship between digital manufacturing and deployable structures. Students will thus be able to design and produce a prototype using digital mechanism and devices of Laser Cutting machines (computer numerical control). In this course the students were confronted with a simple question that became a profound architectural task as it had to be built. They had to design and build a portable structure to host a temporary desired function. This starting point had implicit the necessity of being able to fold the structure to be able to reduce its size to transport it and storage it. The second big restriction was the fabricating system that was cutting with an available laser cutter (SABKO GmbH SH-G1290, 1200mm x 900mm, 110W), and the third one was the material, that should be light, cheap (out of own interest) and suitable to be cut by laser. Function, Fabricating method and Material, those are the main restrictions of our task, as in any other real architectural challenge. Only physical context is missing in this equation, but avoiding it was implicit in the condition of transportability. The only consideration was to expect a flat surface to land on.

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