The Urbach Tower is a unique wood structure providing a striking landmark building for the City of Urbach’s contribution to the Remstal Gartenschau 2019. The design of the tower emerges from a new self-shaping process of the curved wood components. In timber construction, moisture typically causes problems with cracking and deformation; hence, moisture changes and stress development must be carefully controlled. This pioneering development constitutes a paradigm shift in timber manufacturing moving from elaborate and energy-intensive mechanical forming processes that require heavy machinery to a process where the material shapes entirely by itself. In this project wood is programed and arranged in a way to utilize this powerful, naturally occurring deformation to trigger a designed self-shaping behavior. A shift in design thinking, as well as new computational simulations for more accurate prediction, now allow us to use this moisture induced swelling and shrinking to design and program specific self-shaping movements at larger and larger scale.

Further information at IntCDC.
Lecture recommendation (in German) here!