4:00 pm – Petr Hájek, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
“Contribution of Concrete Structures to Sustainable and Resilient Built Environment”

Recent developments and changes in natural and socio-economic environment require new technical solutions for construction of new and modernization of existing structures. Buildings, infrastructure and the entire built environment should be better prepared for the new conditions – they should be sustain- nable, resilient and adaptable to new situations. Concrete and new advanced types of silicate composites gradually become building materials with high potential for new technical solutions resulting in needed environmental impact reduction and consequent social and economic improvement.
The International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) is aware of the urgent need to motivate the concrete industry and the entire construction sector to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and thus to contribute to the development of a sustainable and resilient environment. The new ModelCode 2020 (MC2020) not only addresses traditional safety and serviceability requirements, but incorporates sustainability, which becomes an overriding fundamental requirement responding to broader issues such as social responsibility, environmental quality, and economic efficiency. The basic principles for the design of concrete structures with a focus on their sustainability, applied in completed fib ModelCode 2020 will be presented.
Some examples of concrete structures contributing to sustainable and resilient environment will be presented as well.

5:00 pm – Thomas Speck, Universität Freiburg, Germany
“Plants as inspiration for novel materials systems in engineering, architecture, medicine and soft machines”

Biomimetics is attracting increasing attention in basic and applied research, as well as in industry and construction. Biomimetics has a high innovation potential and offers opportunities for the development of sustainable technical products and production chains. Novel, sophisticated methods for analysis and simulation of the form-structure-function relationship on different hierarchical levels allow fascinating new insights into biological material systems. In addition, for the first time, new production methods allow the transfer of many of the outstanding properties of biological models into innovative biomimetic products at reasonable cost.
In recent decades, plants have been recognised as valuable concept generators for biomimetic research in many application areas of technology, architecture and medicine. Plant-inspired materials systems for applications in architecture, medicine and soft machines are demonstrated by current research projects in the Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg and the livMatS Cluster of Excellence. Examples of mobile systems include liana-inspired soft robots, façade shading systems inspired by leaves and flowers, demonstrators for self-adaptive building shells inspired by pine cones and silver thistle bracts, and artificial Venus fly traps. As an example of a medical application, a prototype of an adaptive wrist and forearm splint is presented. The cactus-inspired fibre pavilion is an example of the use of static plant-inspired and bio-based materials systems in architecture. As with all examples of architectural applications, it was developed in collaboration with the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC at the University of Stuttgart.

Workshop #5 – Botanical and mathematical principles for inspiring design of carbon fibre reinforced concrete

The workshop’s objective is to give an overview of an interdisciplinary process of inspiration for novel concrete structures reinforced with carbon (textiles).
The target is to find new methods for designing structures with highly reduced material use. In the workshop, leaf-stemp-connections and stemp-root-connections are taken a closer look at to give an understanding on their bearing principles. Next, the idea of considering mathematical symmetry principles to create three-dimensional assemblies of basic objects with high stability due to geometrical interlocking. Finally, a roadmap is presented regarding the adoption of interdisciplinary inspiration (here: botany and mathematics) into concrete construction to open up a novel principle of design.
The workshop is three-fold. Each session comprises an introduction part followed by a practical part. The practical part includes microscopic investigations, programming, geometry folding and passing around small demonstrators.

11:30 – 13:00: Reinforcement Structures in Plants

Plant features can serve as inspiration for a multitude of applications. The basic methods to investigate their inner structure by light microscopy will be carried out. Peltate leaves and aerial roots will be evaluated in regard to their distinct fiber arrangement in the junction.

14:00 – 15:30: Symmetry Principles as Inspiration for Structures

In this workshop we will explore ways to employ symmetries to generate geometric building blocks which can be assembled in such a way that they are kinematically restrained by a frame. Participants will be introduced to planar symmetries and will generate their own 3D building blocks by this principle. They will visualize and analyse the resulting assemblies on a computer.
No familiarity with the underlying algebraic concepts is required.

16:00 – 17:30: Generative Design in Textile Reinforced Concrete Structures

In nature, shell structures can be found in diverse variations. Compared to beams, where the bending stress increases disproportionately due to its weight, shell structures can handle significantly larger spans with minimal material expenditure. A similar performance can be reached in thin-walled structures made of textile reinforced concrete (TRC). The workshop is focused on the execution of the prelaminar generative search of the TRC structures based on predefined mathematical patterns using the programming environment of Grasshopper 3D software in combination with Karamba 3D as a FEM tool. Further, the achieved results should be precisely analysed considering the structural boundaries of the TRC material.

speaker information

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Rainer Noennig Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Rainer Noennig (*1973) is Professor for Digital City Science at Hafencity Universität Hamburg and director of the WISSENSARCHITEKTUR Laboratory of Knowledge Architecture at TU Dresden. From 1992 to 1998, he studied architecture at Bauhaus Universität Weimar, Polytech Krakow and Waseda University Tokyo. Between 1998 and 2001 he practiced as architect in Tokyo. From 2001 he was Research Associate at TU Dresden, where he was appointed Junior Professor for Knowledge Architecture (2009-2015). In 2007 he received his doctoral degree from Bauhaus Universität Weimar. He was Visiting Professor at Universit degli Studi dell l´Aquila, ISEN Toulon and Voronezh State Technical University. He has published several books and more than 100 scientific papers and essays. He has won several prizes, scholarships and awards, incl. the Grand Prize of the European Association for Architecture Education (EAAE) and the Ralf Dahrendorf Award for EU Research.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Neinhuis

Prof. Dr. Christoph Neinhuis trained as a gardener until 1983. He then studied biology at the University of Bonn from 1984 to 1990, obtaining his doctorate under Wilhelm Barthlott in 1993. As a research assistant to Barthlott, Neinhuis worked intensively on the mechanisms and fundamentals of the lotus effect and its transferability to technical applications. Numerous papers followed with Barthlott on the lotus effect and its applicability in practice, of which “Purity of the sacred lotus, or escape from contamination in biological surfaces” (1997) is considered groundbreaking. Their project “Model Nature: Uncontaminable New Materials” was nominated for Deutscher Zukunftspreis (German Future Prize) in 1998. The following year, Neinhuis and Barthlott were awarded the Philip Morris Research Prize for their work on transferring the lotus effect to technical applications. At the end of 1999, Neinhuis submitted his habilitation thesis in botany at the University of Bonn, and subsequently represented the professorship of botany at the University of Cologne until 2002. Since 2002, Neinhuis has been Professor of Botany at the Technical University of Dresden and Director of the Botanical Garden Dresden and the Botanical Collection Pirna-Zuschendorf. In 2014, Neinhuis was awarded the Innovation Prize of the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden for the “development of robust, water- and oil-repellent polymer membranes modeled on the skin structures of springtails (Collembola).” Since 2014, he has been a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig as well as president of the Natural Science Society ISIS Dresden.

access data

The access data is restricted to our members. Please log-in to your account to access the event credentials.

design strategies for material-minimized carbon structures. foundations for a new way of building

The aim of the SFB/TRR 280 is to create the foundations for building the future. Methods suitable for the design, modelling and construction with new materials require in-depth basic research. Ideas for innovative, material-suitable construction elements made of carbon concrete are provided by botany, mathematics and art, thus by disciplines other than construction.

The development of novel structures is linked to questions of manufacturability, product-related sustainability assessment and further progress of the composite material itself. New and innovative design strategies allow for a completely different design language, reduce resource and energy consumption, while at the same time ensuring high usability, load-bearing safety and durability. The cooperation of TU Dresden and RWTH Aachen University combines excellent competences and will take on an internationally visible pioneering role in the research of material-minimised construction with mineral composites reinforced with carbon fibres.

The German Research Foundation DFG supports the Transregional Collaborative Research Center with 50 researchers from the Technische Universität Dresden, the RWTH Aachen University and the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden since 2020.

Go to the “SFB/TRR280” Homepage