Project Name: Nanyang Technological University (NTU) School of Art, Design and Media (ADM)

Year: 2006
Owner: Nanyang Technological University
Location: Singapore, Singapore
Building Type: Educational
Type: Intensive
System: Custom
Size: 107639 sq.ft.
Slope: 60%
Access: Accessible, Open to Public
Submitted by: Greenroofs.com
Designers/Manufacturers of Record:
Architect: CPG Consultants Pte Ltd
Developer: Nanyang Technological University
Civil & Structural Engineer: CPG Consultants Pte Ltd
Waterproofing Specialist: Elmich Pte Ltd & Lee Construction Pte Ltd
Waterproofing Materials: alwitra GmbH & Co
General Contractor: Teambuild Construction Pte Ltd

- Verdant turfed roof blends into the lush greenery and environment.
- Turfed landscape as scenic outdoor communal space.
- Green roof lowers both the roof temperature and ambient temperature hence reduce heat gain to the air conditioned
building.
- The building is oriented with its facades facing north and south to minimize solar gain.

- High efficiency discharge lights are adopted throughout the building.

- The rain water collection system is fitted on the green roof for irrigation.
- The rain sensors are installed on the green roof to automate the irrigation process whereby irrigation is ceased when it
rains.
- The curved building is embracing a courtyard with water features and plants. The reflection of the trees and nature can
been seen on the all-glass exterior.

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BY

RENZO PIANO

The California Academy of Sciences by Renzo Piano is a stunning

achievement in green roof design. Such structures are no stranger to
Italian architect Renzo Piano, who designed a long time favorite of
TheCoolist, the Vulcano Buono in Nola, Italy. The CAS building in San
Francisco, California features a 2.5 acre green roof that is blanketed by

local plants, acting as a habitat for bay area wildlife. Within, the CAS
features a planetarium, an aquarium and a man-made rain forest, all
three of which rest right under the dome sections of this amazing green
roof.
- See more at: http://www.thecoolist.com/green-roof-design-10-stunning-sustainable-works-of-architecture/#sthash.HsuoS8Tw.dpuf

VILLA BIO BY ENRIC RUIZ-GELI

The green roof design of Villa Bio stands out amongst a community of
cookie-cutter, Mediterranean-style homes in Llers, Spain. While it was
first met with controversy, the completed Villa Bio reflects the nature of
the local landscape much more intimately than its neighbors. That
nature does not end at the corner of its plot, but continues on to the
homes hydroponic garden that snakes along its green roof. Architect
Enric Ruiz-Geli has masterfully designed a home with a seamless
connection with the Mediterranean environment, an organically-inspired
structure with a lush, productive green roof.
- See more at: http://www.thecoolist.com/green-roof-design-10-stunning-sustainable-works-of-architecture/#sthash.HsuoS8Tw.dpuf

United Design Group (UDG) China recently started construction on Xieli Garden, a green roofed community
kindergarten in Wuxi. The spiraling three-story structure wraps around a central courtyard, while its sloping green
roof connects the street level to the upper floors. The proposed kindergarten is filled with natural light and surrounded
with lush vegetation to provide children with a direct connection to nature.

Papworth Trust Timber Shell

By rcd
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"follow" this blogger.

The Ramboll UK Cambridge office have constructed a small timber shell for the Papworth Trust, a local
charity that works with those who have learning disabilities.
RCD assisted by generating the plate shell geometry, using the planar remeshing method previously
seen on the TRADA Pavilion. The method allows doubly curved shells to be constructed with planar
elements, utilising the 3-plate principle to allow a hinged connection whilst maintaining the rigidity of
the shell.

The shell will remain in place for 3 years.

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ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion

at the University of Stuttgart
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31 October 2011 | 8 comments
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Architecture
Pavilions

Polygonal timber plates give this pavilion at the University of Stuttgart a skeleton like a sea urchin's.

Top and above: photographs are by Roland Halbe

The pavilion was constructed for a biological research collaboration between the Institute for
Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE),
who also invited university students to take part.

Above: photograph is by Roland Halbe

Plywood sheets just 6.5mm thick were necessary to create the domed structure, which is fastened to
the ground to prevent it blowing away.

Above: photograph is by Roland Halbe

The exterior plywood panels are slotted together using finger joints, in the same way as minute
protrusions of a sea urchins shell plates notch into one another.

Photography is by ICD/ITKE, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here's a more technical description from the researchers:

ICD/ITKE RESEARCH PAVILION 2011

In summer 2011 the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building
Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), together with students at the University of Stuttgart have
realized a temporary, bionic research pavilion made of wood at the intersection of teaching and
research. The project explores the architectural transfer of biological principles of the sea urchins
plate skeleton morphology by means of novel computer-based design and simulation methods, along
with computer-controlled manufacturing methods for its building implementation. A particular
innovation consists in the possibility of effectively extending the recognized bionic principles and
related performance to a range of different geometries through computational processes, which is
demonstrated by the fact that the complex morphology of the pavilion could be built exclusively with
extremely thin sheets of plywood (6.5 mm).

BIOLOGICAL SYSTEM
The project aims at integrating the performative capacity of biological structures into architectural
design and at testing the resulting spatial and structural material-systems in full scale. The focus was
set on the development of a modular system which allows a high degree of adaptability and
performance due to the geometric differentiation of its plate components and robotically fabricated
finger joints. During the analysis of different biological structures, the plate skeleton morphology of
the sand dollar, a sub-species of the sea urchin (Echinoidea), became of particular interest and
subsequently provided the basic principles of the bionic structure that was realized.

The skeletal shell of the sand dollar is a modular system of polygonal plates, which are linked
together at the edges by finger-like calcite protrusions. High load bearing capacity is achieved by the
particular geometric arrangement of the plates and their joining system. Therefore, the sand dollar
serves as a most fitting model for shells made of prefabricated elements. Similarly, the traditional
finger-joints typically used in carpentry as connection elements, can be seen as the technical
equivalent of the sand dollars calcite protrusions.

MORPHOLOGY TRANSFER
Following the analysis of the sand dollar, the morphology of its plate structure was integrated in the
design of a pavilion. Three plate edges always meet together at just one point, a principle which
enables the transmission of normal and shear forces but no bending moments between the joints,
thus resulting in a bending bearing but yet deformable structure.

Unlike traditional lightweight construction, which can only be applied to load optimized shapes, this
new design principle can be applied to a wide range of custom geometry. The high lightweight
potential of this approach is evident as the pavilion that could be built out of 6.5 mm thin sheets of
plywood only, despite its considerable size. Therefore it even needed anchoring to the ground to
resist wind suction loads.

Besides these constructional and organizational principles, other fundamental properties of

biological structures are applied in the computational design process of the project:
Heterogeneity: The cell sizes are not constant, but adapt to local curvature and discontinuities. In the
areas of small curvature the central cells are more than two meters tall, while at the edge they only
reach half a meter.
Anisotropy: The pavilion is a directional structure. The cells stretch and orient themselves according
to mechanical stresses.
Hierarchy: The pavilion is organized as a two-level hierarchical structure. On the first level, the
finger joints of the plywood sheets are glued together to form a cell. On the second hierarchical level,
a simple screw connection joins the cells together, allowing the assembling and disassembling of the
pavilion. Within each hierarchical level only three plates - respectively three edges meet exclusively
at one point, therefore assuring bendable edges for both levels.

COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN AND ROBOTIC PRODUCTION

A requirement for the design, development and realization of the complex morphology of the
pavilion is a closed, digital information loop between the projects model, finite element simulations
and computer numeric machine control. Form finding and structural design are closely interlinked.
An optimized data exchange scheme made it possible to repeatedly read the complex geometry into a
finite element program to analyze and modify the critical points of the model. In parallel, the glued
and bolted joints were tested experimentally and the results included in the structural calculations.

The plates and finger joints of each cell were produced with the university's robotic fabrication
system. Employing custom programmed routines the computational model provided the basis for the
automatic generation of the machine code (NC-Code) for the control of an industrial seven-axis
robot. This enabled the economical production of more than 850 geometrically different
components, as well as more than 100,000 finger joints freely arranged in space.

Following the robotic production, the plywood panels were joined together to form the cells. The
assembly of the prefabricated modules was carried out at the city campus of the University of
Stuttgart. All design, research, fabrication and construction work were carried out jointly by students
and faculty researchers.

The research pavilion offered the opportunity to investigate methods of modular bionic construction
using freeform surfaces representing different geometric characteristics while developing two
distinct spatial entities: one large interior space with a porous inner layer and a big opening, facing
the public square between the Universitys buildings, and a smaller interstitial space enveloped
between the two layers that exhibits the constructive logic of the double layer shell.

PROJECT TEAM
Institute for Computational Design - Prof. AA Dipl.(Hons) Achim Menges Achim Menges
Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Knippers
Competence Network Biomimetics Baden-Wrttemberg

CONCEPT & PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Oliver David Krieg, Boyan Mihaylov

PLANNING & REALISATION

Peter Brachat, Benjamin Busch, Solmaz Fahimian, Christin Gegenheimer, Nicola Haberbosch, Elias
Kstle, Oliver David Krieg, Yong Sung Kwon, Boyan Mihaylov, Hongmei Zhai

SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT
Markus Gabler (project management), Riccardo La Magna (structural design), Steffen Reichert
(detailing), Tobias Schwinn (project management), Frdric Waimer (structural design)

Click above for larger image

PROJECT SPONSORS

Main sponsors: KUKA Roboter GmbH, Ochs GmbH

Sponsors: KST2 Systemtechnik GmbH, Landesbetrieb Forst Baden-Wrttemberg (ForstBW),
Stiftungen LBBW, Leitz GmbH & Co. KG, MllerBlaustein Holzbau GmbH, Hermann Rothfuss
Bauunternehmung GmbH & Co., Ullrich & Schn GmbH, Holzhandlung Wider GmbH & Co. KG

MODULAR TIMBER STRUCTURE

The initial project

This structure has been initially designed by Bastien Thorel, student, during an architectural workshop, the
Design Studio Weinand at IBOIS-EPFL, in 2008-2009, turning around the discrete architectural geometry.
The student proposed a structure formed by imbricated wood panels. Only two different panels creates the
structure and fills also the roles of cover and envelope. A V-form base module is fabricated connecting two

mirrored timber panels. These modules are then slipped consecutively, to form an arch which is extended
transversally. The arrangement of these panels in the space generates a light and permeable texture, bringing a
poetic dimension and particularly adapted to the use imagined for the Paleo Festival in Nyon (Switzerland).

The prototype
A prototype of this structure has been realized at the EPFL in order to test the structural feasibility of the
concept as well as to investigate the architectural ambiance. The project included development for 5-axis
machining, as well as designing constructive details and fabrication of the structure. All V-form folded
modules have been manufactured from 21 mm thick three-layer cross-laminated panels and cut by means of
CNC machines.

Structural analysis
A Finite Element 3D model has been established to study the structural behavior of the modular arch and to
propose alternatives in order to increase its structural stiffness. Sina Nabaei piloted this research.The analysis
of the inital variante is illustratd below and shows a bending dominated behaviour:

Two main variantes has been proposed which are illustrated below:
- The truss variante: which creates a skleton (one mainly compressive and the other mainly under tension) in
order to transfer forces between panels.

- The Interlocked Variante: Which follows the initial logic of interlocking but increases the number of
locking slots by shifting panels closer together.

This structure shows an example for the design practice when the final form is driven by the connection
technology, where complex modular global forms are proposed by means of mutually supported simple
folded panels. This prototype inspires a new family of reciprocal frames, where instead of linear members
(beam or bar), planar (folded or elastically deformed) members are mutually supported. As a further work, the
same concept is employed where instead of folded panels curved thin deformed panels are used. The mutual
supportiveness scheme of panels rests unchanged but the slide connection geometry needs to be determined
based on a form-generation analysis. Moreover on such prototype, instead of single folded modules,
continuous thin flat panels will be used where connections are milled and fabrication is realized by elastically
deforming panels and sliding.

IMI International Management Institute Kolkata in West Bengal,

India Abin Design Studio