Low-Cost, High-Insulation, Layer-Reduced, Mono-Material, Adhesive-Free, Digitally-Fabricated, Solid-Timber Construction

Wood is a versatile, easily machinable construction material and, due to its relatively good thermal insulation properties, can also be used as a building envelope. thermal insulation properties, it can also be used as a building envelope if processed appropriately. It therefore offers sustainable, locally available raw material for intelligent milling and joining technology to meet the requirements of current building standards. This means wood has the potential to offer weather protection, thermal insulation, and load-bearing capacity from a single building material. 

In the predecessor project (Zukunft Bau SWD-10.08.18.7-15.59), these properties were successfully demonstrated and production processes have already been successfully implemented. Through a series of slits sawn perpendicular to the heat flow through the envelope, the thermal insulation of a solid wood wall was shown to increase significantly. High-precision manufacturing generates airtight connections between the individual elements, and high-performance structural connection details enable load-bearing corner joints and thus a flexible design language. The concentration of all these functions in a single element type allows extraneous work processes to be reduced to a minimum. The complexity and multi-parameter performance of the wood component allows for simple solutions in the surrounding processing steps and thus reduces the overall effort required for the fabrication and construction of the buildings. 

These properties are now to be expanded in an optimized system for multi-story residential and office buildings. Through the further development of the timber profile and the adaptation of the milling process for integration into standard wood processing equipment on an industrial scale, both the production efficiency and building physics performance of the building component should be improved. The airtightness of the on-site joints of the prefabricated modules is to be improved by the formation of a novel in situ joint detail, and using a new type of metal oxide treatment as a durable and maintenance-free wood protection may eliminate the need for external cladding.

ICD Institute for Computational Design and Construction, University of Stuttgart

Oliver Bucklin, Felix Amtsberg, Prof. Achim Menges

IfW Institute für Werkzeugmaschinen, University of Stuttgart

Kamil Güzel, Prof. Hans-Christian Möhring

Bundesinstitut für Bau- Stadt und Raumforschung(BBSR): Forschungsinitiative  Zukunft Bau