Computation in Architecture

Reviews of the Designing Behaviour biopolymer 3D-printing workshop, led by Carl Eppinger with the support of Carolyn-Nelle Preston Ichniowski and Andreea Bunica. The workshop investigates how reinforcement learning can guide biopolymer 3D printing processes, allowing form to emerge from interaction, feedback and material response.

Last days to apply and join the programme!

From our Reclaimed Timber semester projects: REclaimed REconfigured REimagined. Sotring, Processing, and Reassembling Denmark’s Architectures by Lauren Franco, Irina Pirvu, Daviid Ranløv and Naitik Sharma, explores Danish architectural typologies and the reclamation and storage of the timber components they host into a remanufacturing and material storage site.

You-Wei Yen’s thesis (2023), Robotic Adjustments in Reclaimed Timber Framework, has been presented and published together with tutor Tom Svilans at the 2025 World Conference on Timber Engineering - paper is now available online!
Abstract: Reusing timber elements in construction is a promising path toward extending their lifecycle and easing the pressure on the forest resource. The direct use of elements from disassembled timber buildings in new construction offers the path of least energy expenditure. However, it presents challenges due to material degradation, variation in form, and existing cutouts for joints or other features. This research prototypes a digital framework that leverages 3d laser scanning and robotic fabrication to detect geometric variations, cutouts, and material inconsistencies in reclaimed timber elements, and integrates them into the design process of new timber buildings through a digital mapping of resource-tomodel. The resultant framework demonstrates an adaptive and surgical approach to processing reclaimed timber elements,
mitigating the challenges of their reuse and increasing the number of components that can be included in new construction.

Modular Transformation of Reclaimed Timber, 2024 thesis by Patrycja Superczynska , is a material-first, computational approach to adaptive reuse that integrates locally scavenged timber as the primary design input. Through the use of digital documentation and evolutionary optimisation, archtiectural configurations are generated in direct response to the available stock. The methodology promotes resource-aware, scalable design workflows, aligning spatial outcomes with the realities of material availability and reuse potential.

Lena Fritsch presenting her semester project Graded Biofoam Systems for Responsive Architectural Assemblies at die Angewandte for the Circular Strategies Symposium 6: Cultivating Matter. Is the future alive? - This project explores biofoam as a circular, responsive material system that is co-formed, biodegradable, and derived from accessible ingredients. Conventional PU-foam is a closed-end material:once used, it becomes waste. The biofoam developed here uses a simple, low-tech recipe based on gelatin, glycerin, and water. The resulting foam is castable, and its stiffness and texture can be tuned through proportion changes. Unlike PU, this foam is compostable, remeltable, and recyclable within its own system, enabling a regenerative material loop.

Reimagine Reeds: Active Bending with Reed Bundle by Ayaka Sato is a thesis project aiming to revive local reed production in Denmark, developing a design system for temporary bending-active structures using reed bundles. It combines material investigation, digital simulation, and generative design tools to support sustainable reed architecture rooted in community building and responsive to environmental conditions.

Come meet our faculty and students at the Open House this Wednesday at 14:30! (Zoom link in bio)

From our Reclaimed Timber semester projects: Materialehus, a culture of reclaiming by Mathis Gebauer, Gustav Kohlhaussen, Kriti Mahesh Wali and Yijie Zhou, assess formwork timber for its defect and segments into parts aggregated based on their performance into new beams and columns.