Architecture at your fingertips

One click, that’s it. And a ‘lobster shell’ eight metres in diameter ma­terializes out of nowhere. It’s sup­ported by a frame made of over 60 kilo­metres of glass and carbon fibres. And in no time this futuristic pavilion is standing on the campus of Stuttgart University. It’s a real lightweight at 320 kilograms. For the time being, however, it exists only at the virtual level. It’s a simulation by Achim Menges, architect and professor at the Institute for Computational Design, which he established himself at the University of Stuttgart. A computer does all the calculations he needs 
for a building like this. They are part of an extensive program code that Menges and his team have developed. He even uses digital helpers when is constructing his buildings in reality: robots otherwise used in the automobile industry made the lobster-like pavilion’s supporting structure. Menges and his team also seek assistance from nature: in developing their structures the architects joined forces with biol­ogists to examine not only the ana­tomy of lobsters, but also the structure of sea urchins and spiders, and drew inspiration from them.

www.icd.uni-stuttgart.de