Industrial partners

The project is undertaken in collaboration with two industrial partners:

Blumer Lehmann AGandWhite Arkitekter. The role of these industrial partners is to provide guidance on their respective domains of expertise:

timber processing and construction, and architectural design and computation. This includesdemonstratingthe state of the art ‐ both partners are reputable in their fields and therefore exemplify the current state in their fields ‐groundingthe research in real‐world problems and therefore increasing the relevance of the research project for the wider architectural community; and providing a platform for developing the research within a non‐academic context.

Blumer Lehmann AG

Blumer Lehmann AGis a globally‐leading timber contractor and producer of timber products, based in Gossau, Switzerland. TheLehmann Groupis the parent company ofBlumer Lehmann AGand comprises over 300 employees split between 3 different companies:Lehmann Holzwerk AGoperates a sawmill with an approximate annual throughput of 125 000 cubic metres of locally sourced logs, and turns these logs into construction lumber, wood pellets, and briquettes for energy production;BL Silobau AGspecializes in silo and system construction for winter road services; andBlumer Lehmann AGfocuses on timber construction, modular construction, general contracting, and free‐form timber structures. As such,Blumer Lehmann AG is connected to the entire wood value chain ‐ from log to on‐site assembly of engineered timber components ‐ with the exception of the glue‐lamination

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process and glulam blank production. For various practical, economical, and political reasons, the company sells lumber to other firms which perform the glue‐lamination process, and buys back glulam blanks for further processing and machining. Single‐ and double‐curved glulam blanks are often sourced fromHESS TIMBER GmbH, another timber producer and contractor, based in Kleinheubach, Germany. Multi‐axis machining of large‐scale timber members is performed with a custom built machining centre ‐ the Technowood TW‐Mill C5500 3U8C.

Fig. 1.3:The multi‐axis CNC production centre atBlumer Lehmann AG.

Blumer Lehmann AGhas been involved in the fabrication of several notable timber projects, which describe the leading edge in complex timber architecture. To name a few, the company has fabricated theTamedia Building, theHeasley Nine Bridges Golf and Country Club, and theOmega Swatch Headquartersbuildings designed by Shigeru Ban Architects; the Cambridge Mosque, designed by Marks Barfield Architects; andMaggie’s Centre, Leeds, designed by Foster and Partners.

In this research project,Blumer Lehmann AGprovide guidance and input regarding processes, constraints, and issues in industrial timber production.

A 4‐month secondment is undertaken in the TW‐Mill workshop in Gossau, during which methods for digital feedback in production are explored with the fabrication team. The secondment occurs during the live production of theOmega Swatch Headquartersbuilding by Shigeru Ban Architects, providing an up‐close look at the planning, logistics, and machining of large‐scale free‐form glulam beams.

INTRODUCTION

White Arkitekter and Dsearch

White Arkitekteris a multi‐disciplinary architecture practice with offices across Scandinavia and the UK. Its headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, however it also has satellite offices in London, UK and further. Employing over 900 people, it is the largest architecture practice in Scandinavia. The practice’s portfolio is diverse, ranging from large‐scale urban development projects to urban furniture; from schools to residences and civic buildings.

Fig. 1.4:The Forumtorget public furniture project byDsearchandWhite Arkitekter. Photo: White Arkitekter

TheWhite Research Lab (WRL)is the research and development initiative withinWhite Arkitekter, consisting of three main ”development networks”:

Wood,Light and Tectonics, andDsearch. These development networks are spread out across the offices and design teams, as opposed to being isolated, independent units in themselves. This enables a more relevant and immediate embedding of research within the project teams, and a closer alignment between the needs of the practice and the research efforts of the networks.

Dsearchfocuses on the application of computation and parametric design to architectural design and fabrication processes, how the use of new technologies is integrated into a large and diverse practice, and how knowledge of such technologies is communicated and disseminated throughout the practice. In this respect,Dsearchprovides guidance and

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input in matters relating to processes in architectural practice, architectural design projects, and how new tools and modes of working might be

integrated into existing architectural practices. As withBlumer Lehmann AG, a three‐month secondment is conducted in Stockholm withDsearchwhich explores the application of this research project to several on‐goingWhite Arkitekterprojects.

INTRODUCTION

Fig. 1.5:Translating the virtual into material effect (2012).

1.4 Motivation

The motivation for this research comes from a personal history of working with digital technology in architecture and media, a fascination with practices that move between the ”real” and the ”virtual”, and the desire to revisit the working and shaping of wood through the lens of novel design and simulation techniques. I am fascinated by the transformation of abstract representation into material effect, and all its intermediary translations, displacements, layers of data, and collateral objects (Fig. 1.5).

I see the proliferation of digitization and computation as empowering and as something that allows us to reconsider established and familiar things

‐ such as wood and wood craft ‐ in a new light. Physical objects are not simple aggregations of inert, dumb material, but an amalgamated cluster of overlapping and nebulous layers of meaning, data, politics, and behaviour, connected by abstract linkages of references and cross‐pollinations.

I explored these types of translations during my graduate studies at the Bartlett School of Architecture, with a focus on making and speculating with new technology. Unit 23 explored ”fabricating the real” and its counterpoint:

”the unreal”. The unit’s agenda was to develop a critical practice centred

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around architectural production and an oscillation between representation and realisation. The unit’s work emphasized physical testing, craft, and experimental production design. My graduating project ‐The Bradbury Transcripts: Collateral Realities and the Saturated Blur‐ centred on the slippages and mistranslations between reality and digital representations, and specifically around the many lives and alternate personalities of the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles ‐ the site of many stories, myths, and movies and therefore a mythological locus of sorts. The project relied on the use of robotics, 3D scanning, and digital animation, and questioned how the new realities that these tools opened up related to the physical spaces and artefacts that they described or created (Fig. 1.6). I identified the gap between the virtual and the material as a potential source of enriching

”slippage” and proposed that the digital could be used as much as a source of myth and storytelling in architecture as much as an enabler of complexity and material economy. I went on to work extensively with digital technology:

as the technical director forScanLAB Projects, as well as a teaching fellow, technician, and roboticist in theBartlett Manufacturing and Design Exchange (Bmade)in London.

Fig. 1.6:The Bradbury Transcripts (2013).

Extracurricular activities also included a collaborative ”field robotics”

project (Vercruysse et al. 2014) which explored the performative nature of manufacturing equipment such as 6‐axis industrial robotic arms. Small experimental ”rehearsals” combined video, 3D scanning, photography, and choreographed movement to create new realities between the digital and the material (Fig. 1.7).

At ScanLAB, while the work was primarily image‐based, certain projects nevertheless developed interfaces with the material world through software‐hardware workflows. In the installation projectPhantom

INTRODUCTION

Fig. 1.7:Performative ’field robotics’ with Emmanuel Vercruysse, Kate Davies, and Inigo Dodd (2014).

(kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name)with artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (exhibited at the New Museum in New York, and later as part of the 8th Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art in Moss, Norway), I integrated 3D LiDAR scan data with real‐time motion tracking and a VR headset to create an immersive opportunity for a viewer to experience the Mata Atlântica rainforest in Brazil as a ghostly black‐and‐white simulacrum.

The phantom of the Mata Atlântica was summoned through the interfacing of virtual models with real‐time sensor data and an integrated system of distinct hardware platforms.

Fig. 1.8:Phantom (kingdom of all the animals and all the beasts is my name) by ScanLAB Projects and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (2015).

Apart from my day‐to‐day duties as a teacher and technician atBmade,

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I continued my pursuit of these ”ghosts” and slippages in the domain of production. The integration of cyber‐physical systems focused on the relationship between the information model and the physical artefact:

Where are they in relation to one another? How does one affect the other?

A key project in this exploration was a collaboration with carpenter and fellow Bmade colleague Jonny Martin. Combining Jonny’s knowledge of wood craft and making with my knowledge of robotics and programming, we developed a prototypical project around the cyber‐physical ghost of laminated wood veneers during the after‐hours peace and quiet of the workshop. Creatively entitledOptically‐guided free‐form vacuum lamination, the project explored the bending and laminating of wood veneers without form‐work. We set up a stage where a robotic arm dynamically bent and pulled a stack of laminated veneers ‐ still wet ‐ while an optical motion capture system ‐ typically used for tracking the movements of actors and animals for movies ‐ relayed real‐time positional data from reflective markers placed on the laminated assembly. The sensor data created a virtual stand‐in for the bending and twisting wood, which was overlaid onto its simulated digital ghost. The gaps, errors, and slippages in between were chased by the robot: it moved and contorted in an attempt to close the gaps and sew shut the seam between the sensed and the simulated.

Fig. 1.9:Free‐form optically‐guided vacuum lamination with Jonny Martin (2015).

In many ways, this chasing of ghosts and deployment of digital technologies of sensing, simulation, and production to the lively, unpredictable nature of wood are the direct precursors to this research project. What this research asks, however, is how this way of thinking can be expanded to industrial scales and large buildings ‐ beyond the individual and tactile relationship between craftsman and workpiece: what are the ghosts and slippages in the industrial production of laminated wood, and what mediums are required to summon them?

INTRODUCTION