Benjamin Dillenburger
During the final trimester of the MAS, students pursue individual or group projects in collaboration with the researchers from DBT and Gramazio Kohler Research, with a strong focus on their interests developed throughout the academic year.
Those can range from highly specific interventions within ongoing research from NCCR, broader explorations on topics of technology in architecture as well as personal fascination regarding state of the art building culture. The final review is on September 19th. Remotely or locally, we cordially invite professionals as well as all curious guests to join us.
Student: Ming-Yang Wang
Tutors: Rena Giesecke,Simon Griffioen
Augmented Reality (AR) based Modeling of Reconfigurable Sand and Gravel Molds for Glass
This thesis utilizes digitally reconfigurable sand molding for the creation of freeform features in glass elements for architecture. Previous research has provided proof of concept for Robotic Reconfigurable Sand Molding for Doubly Curved Float Glass including investigations regarding precision at a small scale.
This project investigates the geometric potentials, limitations of the material system, and the fabrication process with the AR system. Based on these findings, a demonstrator that showcases the intriguing freeform properties will be fabricated.
Student: Hanbing Zhao
Tutors: Dr. Anton Savov, Hang Zhang
Combinatorial Design of Residential Buildings using Tilesets
Wave Function Collapse (WFC) as a procedural generation algorithm, can be potentially used for three aspects: quickly generating new designs, interactively configuring designs, and immersively experiencing them. This thesis will focus on the quick generation of a 2-floor CLT house by tileset, mainly by Monoceros. Briefly explaining the WFC working process, it starts with 3D empty voxelized slots, which can be filled with a set of modules. Then the modules are combined with some specific connection rules to make a generation in the slot field. This method allows the creation of unlimited designs. There are four properties needed to be considered in this method, slot size, tile design, rule set, and layout organization. Therefore, the research question comes out based on the generation method. What properties does a tileset need to have to accommodate for a variety of residential architectural designs?
Students: Muslima Rafikova, Joaquin Tobar Martinez
Tutors: Maria Smigielska, Suzi Pain (Danish Royal Academy)
Ceramic Assemblies: Articulation of Interlocking Joints
Within the framework of the Master of Advanced Studies at ETH Zurich 2021-2022, this thesis is situated in the context of additive manufacturing (AM) of ceramics for architectural components. The project addresses three joint systems for non-standard ceramic bricks that explore interlocking, dry fixing, and articulated adhesion that capitalise on the geometric freedom of robotic 3D printing in clay.
The digital experiments coupled with physical prototypes demonstrate potential strategies for the design of a porous non-load bearing wall that articulate the joints not purely as structure, but also as a form of architectural expression.
Students: Chris Norcross, Vincent Wörndl
Tutors: Tiziano Derme, Ioanna Mitropoulou
Novel Mycelium Composites for Architectural Elements
Environmental pollution and scarcity of resources are accelerating the investigation of sustainable construction materials. Mycelium-based composites are a promising biomaterial being fully circular in terms of end-of-life as well as economically competitive. However, the manufacturing methods for elements of architecture have been mainly limited to cast molds. This thesis aims to investigate the potential of using braided yarns as a feedstock scaffolding for mycelium based elements. Digitally aided Fabrication and a customized computational design workflow will be the basis for conducting research on the variables of growth, time, aesthetics and unpredictability inherent to natural processes.
Students: Jingwen Wang, Wenjun Liu
Tutors: Gene Ting-Chun Kao, Ioanna Mitropoulou, Francesco Ranaudo
Robotic Assembly of Stability Guided Structures
Robotic assembly has been explored as a means to construct structures in recent ten years. However, little attention has been paid to the stability of the structure during the construction. Current robotic assembly of discrete elements is mostly limited to vertically stacked elements, as those shapes are inherently stable and therefore easier to be constructed. On the contrary, spanning structures are usually stable only after they are completely built, therefore posing a challenge to their autonomous construction. The standardized way of constructing spanning structures is to use a fair amount of falsework as temporary supports, resulting in material waste and non-sustainability. To reduce the falsework used for spanning structure, this research explores geometric properties and multi-robot collaboration strategies that enable stable assembly during construction.
Student: El Mehdi Belyasmine
Tutors: Wenqian Wang, Angela Yoo
Augmented Physical Models
This research aims to expand and enhance the communicative role of physical models in architecture through the use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Through a deep understanding and application of UI/UX design and strategies, the approach is to create a new augmented interface using readily available tools such as the Microsoft Hololens, to make a physical model more alive, informative and captivating. The study investigates how to overlay digital information with physical models to give users (architects, designers, clients and curators) access to analyses, narrative visualizations and information. The proposed methodology is to understand how to create, test and prototype multiple layers of a potential tool and to establish a constant and optimal pipeline. Finally, this research seeks to demonstrate how architects can design augmented physical experiences to be communicated and shared for a wider audience.
During the final trimester of the MAS, students pursue individual or group projects in collaboration with the researchers from DBT and Gramazio Kohler Research, with a strong focus on their interests developed throughout the academic year.
Those can range from highly specific interventions within ongoing research from NCCR, broader explorations on topics of technology in architecture as well as personal fascination regarding state of the art building culture. The final review is on September 21. Remotely or locally, we cordially invite professionals as well as all curious guests to join us.
Student: Kitani Eleni
Tutor: Sitnikov Vasily
Advisor: Lloret Fritschi Ena
Graded Ice Matrix Structures : Design and fabrication of spatially graded concrete elements using packed-fused ice aggregate
Student: Artemis Maneka
Tutors: Vasily Sitnikov, Juney Lee ( Block research group)
Ice Formwork System for Concrete Shell Structures
Student : Priyank Soni
Tutors : Hyunchul Kwon (ETH Zurich), Prof. Dr. Moslem Shahverdi (Empa)
Collaborators: Dr. Zafeirios Triantafyllidis (Empa), Dr. Rudolf Hufenus (Empa)
3D Printing for Kinetic Architecture: Rigidity, Flexibility, and Actuation
Student : Liya Sunny Anthraper and Wei-Ting Chen
Tutors : Ana Anton, Eleni Skevaki and Lex Reiter, collaborators :Gonzalo Casas and Philippe Fleischmann (COMPAS RRC)
Imprinting Concrete : A study on inlays for Robotic 3D Concrete Printing and Placing
Students: Pascal Bach, Ilaria Giacomini
Thesis Supervisor: Marirena Kladeftira
Self-Interlocking Spatial Structures
During the final trimester of the MAS, students pursue individual or group projects in collaboration with the researchers from DBT and Gramazio Kohler Research, with a strong focus on their interests developed throughout the academic year.
Those can range from highly specific interventions within ongoing research from NCCR, broader explorations on topics of technology in architecture as well as personal fascination regarding state of the art building culture. The final review is on September 1. Remotely or locally, we cordially invite professionals as well as all curious guests to join us.
