June 5, 2019

This twisting tower is made from timber that bends itself into shape

As blogged on New Atlas, moisture is usually bad news for timber, at least if you plan to use it for building purposes. This is largely because it can cause the material to crack and warp as it dries out, features hardly conducive to the idea of structural integrity. But one group of researchers in Germany is investigating how this process can actually be harnessed for more efficient construction, manifesting in a magnificent tower made up of timber pieces that twisted themselves into shape.

Generally speaking, part of preparing timber for construction involves ridding it of moisture by drying it out in a kiln, or a machine with similar heating capabilities. This causes it to deform, but ultimately stabilizes it and makes it suitable for use. Researchers at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design and Construction are exploring how they can interfere in this process to “program” the wood so that it transforms into desired shapes, just like you might program a robot to perform particular movements.

“By carefully understanding and digitally modeling the deformations that occur in the drying process we can arrange the wood before drying to produce specific deformations,” team member and doctoral candidate Dylan Wood explains to New Atlas. “More specifically, we build flat wood bilayers plates (two layers with opposing grain directions) while the wood still has a relatively high moisture content. The plates are dried using industrial drying processes and they emerge curved. The species of wood, grain orientations, thickness ratios, and the change in moisture during the drying process are all parameters that affect the curvature.”

The team says its so-called Urbach Tower is the first structure in the world to use self-shaped building-scale components. To begin, the bilayers were produced to contain 22 percent wood moisture content and were then dried to 12 percent, which Wood says is standard for this type of construction. Once dried and curved, the bilayers were stacked and glued together to lock their curvatures in place.

Keep reading on New Atlas

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