Incredible vault project by Princeton university at the University of Segovia campus. Check out the video in the link.
innixAR is an unreinforced masonry shell built in IE University’s campus in Segovia by researchers from IE University, Princeton University, and the University of Bergamo. The structure examines the intersection between digital technologies and traditional building techniques. innixAR demonstrates the use of augmented reality (AR) and 4D funicular design to enable vault artisans to construct beautiful masonry structures in the air, without temporary and wasteful molds or centering of guidework.
Overlooking the Eresma river, innixAR embodies three curved vaults that lean on stay-in-place timber ribs. The timber ribs served as stay-in-place centering during construction, allowing the assembly of the three vaults inside out, from the internal ribs towards the edges, which is more efficient than conventional practices in vault making. The materiality of innixAR celebrates the craft of tile vaulting, a millennia old building technique that uses the fast-setting plaster of Paris and lightweight terracotta tiles to build thin compression-only structures. The location of the vaults of innixAR were imagined to frame three scenes from the natural and historical surroundings on site: the sinuous path of the Eresma river, an ancient monastery in Segovia, and the hills over the central Spanish plateau. The shaded space provided by innixAR is planned to be used as a gathering area for students and faculty members of the IE university that sparks intellectual conversations, and as a tranquil meditation space.
The shape of the innixAR was generated with a new 4D funicular design method developed at Princeton University which integrates assembly sequencing and constrained form-finding to generate construction-informed, compression-only forms. The geometric constraints that steer the shape of the geometry during the funicular design process have been translated from study on the craft of vernacular vault construction; particularly from thorough conversations with Salvador Gomis Aviñó (CERCAA), a vault master builder from Valencia with 20 years of experience in his craft.
AR and vernacular tile vaulting were combined to successfully materialize the vaults of innixARThe vault builder was guided on site by holograms that were overlaid with physical reality by an AR headset. These holograms described the geometry of the vault as a reference for its shape and the brick coursing pattern. The use of AR to enhance the construction of a meter-scale masonry vault proved to be key to supersede the use of physical molds, guides and formwork for the vault, time and material intensive items that are otherwise necessary in current approaches to vault construction. Additionally, the use of AR helped monitor the structural behavior of the vault during the construction stage.
The design and the AR-powered construction method that converge on innixAR prove that current design and fabrication technologies do not exclude vernacular and traditional building techniques: digital technologies enhance craft.Thes structure comes as part of a three year collaboration between IE School of Architecture and Design and the Form Finding lab at Princeton University. The project investigates the potential of the intersection of traditional building crafts with engineering technology as a possible pathway to low-carbon, environmentally friendly architecture. The collaboration is supported by the Faculty Initiative Fund of Princeton's Institute for International and Regional Studies.
Materials:
Bricks: Cerámicas La Paloma
Plaster of Paris: Saint-Gobain Placo
Timber: Phenolic Birch Marine Plywood
Links:
Researchers:
Credits:
Project management: Wesam Al Asali, Sigrid Adriaenssens
Design: Rafael Pastrana, Robin Oval, Edvard Bruun, Wesam Al Asali
Construction: Salvador Gomis Avino, Wesam Al Asali, Robin Oval, Rafael Pastrana, Vittorio Paris
Sponsors: Princeton University's Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), Cerámicas La Paloma