Introduction
The computational bamboo installation was built in July 2018 as part of the IAAC Global Summer School in Quito, Ecuador. The structure is constructed from bending-active bamboo laths and rods and will be showcased for 3 months at the Museum of Interactive Science in Quito. The workshop, which resulted in this demonstrator, combined natural local traditional building materials with new computational methods for design combined with traditional fabrication.
IAAC Global Summer School
The demonstrator structure is one outcome of ongoing research conducted at the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), under the guidance of Prof. Jan Knippers, regarding the design, analysis, and construction of bending-active structures. The workshop was led by two ITKE researchers, Evy Slabbinck and Seiichi Suzuki, and attended by 9 students who were mostly inexperienced in the use of computational tools. The two-week workshop was divided into three parts: the learning phase, design workshop, and fabrication and assembly phase. Initial lectures provided in-depth tuition on bending-active structural systems, computational tools, FEA software, and material science. This 3-day period was then followed by a 4-day intensive design session where the structure was designed in detail and the workshop ended with a 4-day fabrication period. The workshop aims to have an impact on different levels. First, the installation combines traditional materials with cutting-edge ...