Wood is an anisotropic, organic, elastic, naturally occurring resource and building material. Because of its nature, the material properties of wood are highly complex. The anisotropic characteristics allow wood to be loaded differently dependant on fiber- directions. In most modern architectural scenarios the potential of these unique properties remain unexplored.
In fact, often these properties are considered a drawback and a lot of effort is put into avoiding these natural occurring phenomena to take place.
The goal of this work was to interpret the outstanding properties of wood as a design potential and make use of them. The intention was to develop a system which not only integrates these properties but is based on and results from these.
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A conceptual model showed how a material system could evolve by joining simple elements that utilize the material behaviour. A system- and material-compatible size was  defined after wards and experiments in scalability were conducted. A digital Information model was developed parallel and the results were fed in gradually.
After a series of prototypical investgations an elements consisting of 4 timber strips was developed. They were flexurally ridigidly joined at their ends which resulted in a bi-stable equilibrium state, dependant on the fiber directions within each strip. If these were not running in parallel to the longitudinal direction of each strip, the element would be in an instable equilibrium. A minimal amount of activation energy was needed in order to cause it to snap into one of the two stable equilibria.
This element therefore exists in a complex reciprocal state between inner forces and environmental pressures.
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Based on the observation that the surface generated by the edges of the strips configures into the boundary of a HP-surface various investigations were started and and compared: A first one investigated the use of a large membrane within a four-sided element . This option neglects the movement of each element into multiple stable states. Through various variations a multi-scalar systems was proposed, which consisted of an array of nested 4-sided frames within a larger rigid frame. Each nested frame was covered with a membrane and connected to the larger frame by a quad.meshed cablenet. Changes in the shape of the global system affected the local geometries. This jointless prototype was capable of varying its degree of closure by a very high degree.
Material Systems II studio brief