03 Research demonstrator Built Stuttgart

LightPRO Shell

The project focused on designing and constructing a lightweight shell structure in the form of a 1:1 research pavilion, using pultruded natural fibre profiles — a newly developed product created by the BioMat research team in collaboration with academic and industrial partners.

My group was in charge of the profiles: we created a labelling system, ran chemical and physical tests, designed and used a bending tool for more quantifiable results, and organised deliveries and profile transportation. Testing, prefabrication and the initial studies were done at the IntCDC Workshop in Waiblingen.

In the second part of the project, all students and tutors took part in the building phase and the realisation of the overall structure on the university's campus in Mitte. It gave us the much-needed practical knowledge of every stage involved in making an architectural object — not just designing one.

Built
BioMat Pavillon 2021 — LightPRO Schale,
Aktiv-Biege-Struktur aus Naturfasern
Institution
BioMat / ITKE, Universität Stuttgart
Role
Profiles team — with Maysa Shaher
Tutors
JunProf. Dr.-Ing. M.Eng. Arch. Hanaa Dahy · DiplIng. M.Arch. Evgenia Spyridonos · Dr.-Ing. arch. Jan Petrš · M.Arch. Piotr Baszyński
Scope
Material testing · Prefabrication · Construction
The finished pavilion on the university campus: two curved membrane shells stretched over a lattice of natural fibre profiles, above a timber deck.
The pavilion on the Stuttgart campus
Project sheet: the team beneath the completed shell, the pavilion by day and at dusk, a detail of the membrane fixings, and the full project credits.
The built structure, team and credits
Process sheet: the profile layout diagram alongside photographs of bending, labelling, assembly and raising the structure on site.
Profiles, prefabrication and assembly