Bamboo computing

Designed and developped in Fablab Zoi

Art & culture Architecture

It’s a large-scale demonstrator, located in the Science and Interactive Museum (MIC) (www.museo-ciencia.gob.ec) for a 3 months exhibition, aiming to open a discussion regarding adaptive lightweight structures and its role in the sustainable development of our building environment.

Technologies used

CNC milling Computing & softwares Wood working tools
  • What’s the project story?

I am an industrial designer and when I discovered that the Iaac Global Summer School (IGSS)(http://globalschool.iaac.net/gss18_quito/) will be held in Quito, I took the opportunity to learn with talented and inspiring people on an innovative area. For this first session in Latin America, the IGSS chose the theme “Re-active morphologies”. Digital fabrication opens a new world for architecture which moves from static buildings to the more dynamic and behavioral ones. It is also an opportunity for designers and engineers to investigate about habitability and sustainability of structures. After 2 weeks of theoretical course, with the students coming from all over the world, we polled our energy to design, with our teachers’ support, an innovative structure made of Bamboo. This material was chosen because of the great opportunity it offers to the country: it’s a cheap, resistant and abundant.

  • How the workshop was useful ?

The Fablab Zoi was a key partner to offer us the opportunity to test our ideas and new knowledge and to produce the pieces of the final structure.

  • What’s the project’s greatest success so far?

Despite our different background and knowledge, we succeeded to build this innovative structure and to contribute through this project to the ongoing research conducted at the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) about lightweight structures design using high-level techniques such as physical form-finding.

  • What’s your greatest failure(s)& lesson(s) so far?

We underestimated the difficulties to build the structure: the first day all the structure collapsed. We understood that we had to build first the central piece that the right heavier part to finish by the left lighter part. We also discovered that such a structure only works with we first start to build the external structure before the internal one. This experience was key to develop our skills with bamboo. However, it was an intense experience where we worked from 8 am to 11 pm during the 4 days of the structure construction. Even the cameraman and a museum employee helped us.

  • What’s your vision for the project & next steps?

This project, which aims to investigate the future of the building, is linked to one of the Quito matter of interest about reducing the urban environmental impact. In fact, it’s located in the antechamber of the city large model which aims to sensitize visitors about the future of the city. As a consequence, the museum director examines the opportunity to reuse the project in the future.

  • How anyone interested can contribute to the project?

If you want to learn more about the investigation, don’t hesitate to send me a message and I recommend you to participate in the next IGSS!

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