House 4178: Relocation and assembly of the robotic pavilion to the Old Botanical Garden in Zürich

House 4178, developed by the students throughout the academic year, used computational design and robotic fabrication to realize a unique two-story timber structure. Throughout the project, multiple prototypes were designed, fabricated, tested and refined, leading to a final project proposal. In order to fabricate the final proposal, a new robotic setup consisting of two large-scale ABB industrial robots on a linear track was developed and installed. In an automated process, the robot precisely pre-cut and assembled over 4000 different elements into large component pieces which together created the walls, floors and enclosure. The final prefabricated elements are composed of three-dimensional spatial trusses autonomously clad with wooden shingles. The structure was then installed by assembling the individual prefabricated elements on-site. The project featured teaching contributions from various groups within the NCCR Digital Fabrication including the Block Research Group (BRG), the Chair of Sustainable Construction, and the Digital Building Technologies.