Grow/Print Your Own Building
Team: Marjan Colletti, Peter Massin, Georg Gasser, Mümün Keser, supported by Catalina Tripolt
‘The term km 0, or 0 km, was derived from the Slow Food movement. As a clear counterpoint to fast-food chains, the idea of the movement is to promote the consumption of local ingredients, reducing the distance between producers and consumers. With this mission, it seeks to reduce damage to the environment caused by monoculture and the emissions of carbon dioxide/consumption of fossil fuels caused by the transportation of these products. In addition, Slow Food seeks to encourage the production and consumption of local and seasonal ingredients, maintaining regional customs and fostering a greater connection to and appreciation of the food.’
Eduardo Souza
Km 0 Arch takes a similar approach, and endeavours to develop intelligent, innovative and impactful strategies to designing, manufacturing and building more ecologically friendly architectures. The Design Studio / Bachelor’s Thesis, entitled ‘Km 0 Architecture – Grow/Print Your Own Building‘, aimed at developing, together with students, healthy, economical, ecological and innovative buildings for the 21st century. Digital and physical models were developed in cooperation with the elective courses ‘Active Matter’ and ‘Agile Models’.
In the studio, students investigated locally resourced natural materials and developed novel ways of processing and rendering them suitable for architectural purposes thanks to the possibilities of digital fabrication. Various observations and findings have been made throughout the two semesters: changes of materials over time, how we as architectural designers can control and design such change, and which application is most suitable on which scale. Students were free to choose the context they would like to work in (Joshua Tree Park in the USA; Bandiagara in Mali; Jakarta in Indonesia; a rural agricultural area in China; Lake Beulakerwijde in the Netherlands; Sulaibiya in Kuwait; Icapui in Brasil; Sao Paulo in Brasil; Cape Town in South Africa; a forest, maybe in Tyrol), and consequently looked for appropriate km 0 materials (clay, bamboo, mycelium, hydrogel, thermoplastic starch-TPS, scrap tires, alternative concrete, algae, coconut fibres).
After the material studies developed throughout the first semester, the focus shifted to developing design strategies for manufacturing methodologies. Hence the resulting research question: how can we develop appropriate design languages that suit these bespoke materials, and the constraints and affordanced of digital fabrication? The results demonstrate, by exemplifying individual proto-architectures, the students’ approaches to this challenging enquiry.
Students: Theresa Eder, Thomas Eder, Elena Hagspiel, Simon Hildebrand, Edoardo Manfrini, Philipp Meschik, Pia Nagl, Justus Pegger, Philipp Tappeiner, Falk Wintersteller
