Robots have been used to make various kinds of constructions. Here at Materia, we have discussed robots laying bricks, fabricating a pavilion from a glass and carbon filament, and designing lamps from Aerospace fibre. Now, students from the Swiss University ETH Zurich have made a wooden pavilion built by robots, with the aim to reduce production waste. 

The inner structure of the pavilion is made of interconnected braced timber, which was cut to size by robots. The wood on the interior is left exposed, where it forms window seats and a staircase. The outside, which tilts on two sides to create apertures, is entirely covered in wooden shingles.

According to the university, the structure is the world’s first two-storey wooden pavilion built using robots. The advantage of this technique is that the material waste can be minimised by reacting to different material sizes during the construction process. The team used solid spruce slats of varying dimensions to create the framework, challenging the robot to adapt its technique to non-standardised materials.

The ground floor of the pavilion acts as a gathering space or an exhibition space, while the top floor can be used as an observation spot. The structure took five weeks to complete, including testing prefabrication parts and on-site assembly.

The pavilion was designed and built by students and professors at the Gramazio Kohler Research lab, famous for their bricklaying robots, as part of an on going research into the use of robots for timber construction. The pavilion will be exhibited at the Zurich Design Biennale in September 2017.

Photos: ETH Zurich (via Dezeen)