The goal of the PLOT­BOT/CRAWLER re­search pro­ject is to de­vel­op a web-based, sen­sor-guid­ed au­to­ma­ton – a mo­bile robot that can be used to func­tio­n­al­ize build­ing sur­faces via the ap­pli­ca­tion of com­plex lay­er sys­tems. Its thor­ough in­te­gra­tion of tool and soft­ware log­ic al­lows it to be guid­ed over the sur­faces of struc­tu­ral el­e­ments in re­al time, re­gard­less of ge­ome­try, or di­rect­ed to fol­low a pre­pro­grammed pat­tern.

The PO­LA re­search pro­ject cen­ters on the de­vel­op­ment of a new sys­tem for the at­ten­u­a­tion of low-mi­drange and bass fre­quen­cies, fea­tur­ing lightweight uni­tized con­struc­tion cus­tomiz­able to any in­door or out­door lo­ca­tion.

By im­ple­ment­ing Sound Con­trol/ Sound Lis­ten­ing - a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary area of re­search - we add another per­cep­tu­al per­spec­tive to the re­search plat­form BUILD­ING ART IN­VEN­TION. On­go­ing re­search fo­cus­es on the de­vel­op­ment of a nov­el tech­nique of sound re­duc­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­gards to bass fre­quen­cies, a sys­tem for public space that can be used in­side as well as out­side.

SAL­IX RE­GIO­N­ALIS 3D is a re­search and de­vel­op­ment pro­ject that seeks to turn flex­i­ble strips of wood in­to wo­ven lat­tices op­ti­mized for use as 3D mold­ed sur­faces. Pro­ject fund­ing is pro­vid­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­a­tion of In­dus­trial Re­search As­so­ci­a­tions.

With sup­port from the Ger­man Fed­er­a­tion of In­dus­trial Re­search As­so­ci­a­tions, Build­ing Art In­ven­tion has launched a new re­search and de­sign pro­ject to de­vel­op an in­no­va­tive web-aug­ment­ed ma­chine for the pro­duc­tion of cus­tom wood con­struc­tions with milled joints. An easy-to-use all-in-one ma­chine, a stan­dardized join­ery sys­tem, an app-based in­ter­face, and an on­line plat­form for the exchange and eval­u­a­tion of de­signs are com­bined to cre­ate a new kind of tool. Estab­lished wood­work­ing meth­ods, in­clud­ing in­dus­trial-scale pro­cess­es, are refined and brought to­gether in an in­tel­li­gent sys­tem that is flex­i­ble and us­er-friend­ly. Us­ing a log­i­cal­ly in­ter­linked sys­tem of tools and ma­te­rials, dig­i­tal de­signs can be turned in­to com­po­nents that are then as­sem­bled in­to ob­jects and struc­tures.

Die Vereini­gung zwei­er Abkürzun­gen im Ti­tel ver­weist auf die Zielset­zung des Pro­jekts: Die ex­per­i­men­telle En­twick­lung von Pho­to­vol­taik-Sys­teme mit­tels ein­fach­er Ver­fahren („Do It Your­self“ / DIY), basierend auf den auf den tech­nischen Prinzipi­en der farb­stoff­sen­si­tivierten So­larzelle (en­gl. Dye Sen­si­tized So­lar Cell DSSC oder auch DYSC). Das große Po­ten­tial der DYSC beruht auf ihr­er prinzipiellen Ein­fach­heit. Da­her eignet sie sich gleicher­maßen für die ex­per­i­men­telle En­twick­lung neuartiger An­sätze auf dem Ge­bi­et der Ge­bäude in­te­gri­erten Pho­to­vol­taik wie für mo­bile Sys­teme.

The MAG­NET­IC PAT­TERN­ING OF CON­CRETE pro­ject ex­plores pos­si­bil­i­ties and strate­gies for the use of mag­net­ic fields to struc­ture and de­sign sur­faces and ma­te­rials. Here we find two op­pos­ing ap­proach­es: the se­lec­tive po­si­tion­ing of in­di­vi­d­u­al par­ti­cles and the sys­te­m­at­ic gen­er­a­tion of par­ti­cle fields.

The pro­ject "Lo­cal Re­sources – New Ma­te­rials" fund­ed by the Ger­man Aca­dem­ic Exchange Ser­vice DAAD fo­cus­es on the re­ac­ti­va­tion and evo­lu­tion of the knowl­edge of the use of tra­di­tio­n­al build­ing ma­te­rials in Oman.

BlingCrete rep­re­sents a new genre of ma­te­rials with its own log­ic of ef­fect. BlingCrete com­bines the pos­i­tive char­ac­teris­tics of con­crete (fire safe­ty, so­lid­i­ty, build­ing meth­ods) with those of retrore­flec­tion. Retrore­flect­ing sur­faces send in­com­ing rays of light (sun­light or ar­ti­fi­cial light) back pre­cise­ly in the di­rec­tion of the source. This op­ti­cal pheno­menon is pro­duced by embed­d­ing glass mi­cro­spheres in the sub­s­trate ma­te­rial. The BlingCrete sur­face is ac­ti­vat­ed de­pend­ing on the po­si­tion of sur­face, light source and re­cipi­ent. The con­crete changes from a pas­sive to an ac­tive state. BlingCrete cre­ates im­mer­sive en­vi­ron­ments by low-tech ana­logue modes.

A de­com­mis­sioned ship, which was re­tired af­ter 40 years of pas­sen­ger ves­sel ser­vice, will be trans­formed in­to the MS IM-PORT//EX-PORT, a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary plat­form for art an sci­ence on the riv­er Ful­da. The ship of­fers a unique set of ameni­ties at a river­side site in the cen­ter of Kas­sel. Dur­ing dOC­U­MEN­TA(13), it will pro­vide a unique in­ter­face be­tween the uni­ver­si­ty, its art school, the ci­ty of Kas­sel and the in­ter­na­tio­n­al public.

Wood be­comes tex­tile. BAU KUNST ERFIN­D­EN ini­ti­ates the in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search pro­ject TETHOK with 6 part­n­ers.The group de­vel­ops tex­tile tec­ton­ics for wood con­struc­tion. We in­vesti­gate the de­sign, shap­ing, si­m­u­la­tion, man­u­fac­ture, and con­struc­tion of lightweight load-bear­ing struc­tu­ral com­po­nents made of wood-based cont­in­u­ous-fiber tex­tiles. Wood is one of hu­mani­ty’s old­est con­struc­tion ma­te­rials, with enor­mous tech­no­log­i­cal, aes­thet­ic, and eco­log­i­cal po­ten­tial. De­mand for wood con­struc­tion is grow­ing as well, due to its ex­cep­tio­n­al en­vi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance and na­t­u­ral struc­tu­ral qual­i­ties, and yet to our knowl­edge, a wood-based cont­in­u­ous fiber – com­bin­ing the ad­van­tages of tex­tile struc­tu­ral el­e­ments with those of wood – does not yet ex­ist.