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A Flexible Mold for Facade Panel Fabrication

We have developed a novel, fully reconfigurable, zero-waste molding system. Our reconfigurable mold achieves the desired shape automatically and in minutes via a computer-controlled mechanism, and eliminates the need for manual processing of the mold surface.


Production Process

The flexible membrane creates an excellent surface finish. The process generates zero waste and consumes significantly less energy than conventional methods. We control the shape of the flexible membrane by controlling only boundary conditions. This requires only a very small number of actuators, and we get perfectly smooth surfaces all the time. The tradeoff for this elegant and simple hardware is a highly complex inverse design and optimization problem. That we solved.

We integrated the mold prototype with robotic 3D printing to facilitate the automated fabrication of 3D-printed concrete facade panels. Our prototype demonstrates the ability to produce free-form panels with minimal deviation from the target shapes. The small tolerances suggest the process is capable of producing panels for architectural applications. Now we are going to scale up the technology to enable the production of 2x1.5m² panels and automate the fabrication and quality control process. Our team, comprising experts in architecture, computer science, mathematics, and physics with a proven track record in interdisciplinary research, is uniquely qualified to achieve this goal and realize a mold prototype to produce small batches of architectural panels.

 

Further information

PDF Siggraph Asia 2024

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We are looking forward to hearing from you.


Find us at the Future Facade in Utrecht May 7-8 2025!

Karlsplatz 13,

1040 Wien

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