Text © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Institute
for Computational Design (ICD), University of Stuttgart
change occurs under variations in the moisture content
of the wood, and is controlled through the lamination
conditions of a wood-bilayer material.7 The ability to
change particle geometry over time can be strategically
deployed for different stages in the construction process:
for example, the packing volume of the granular system
increases multiple times under actuation. Furthermore,
the material moves from a pourable substance, when
the particles are convex, to an entangled mass, when
they are double
non-convex. The
process of geometry
change is entirely reversible and can be steered directly
through watering, or indirectly through ambient relative
humidity, changing the moisture content of the particles.
The combination of actuating with non-actuating
particles was explored by Alexander Wolkow in the
ITECH master’s thesis Mixed Linear Particles (2015–16).
This approach is especially suited for large-scale
construction as it combines only a few intelligent
–
and thus costly
–
particles with cheap and recycled
bulk
materials. The
largest percentage of the granular
structure is made from simple sticks cut from leftover
wood materials. Only a small portion of hygroscopic ...
