Construction Week 2019

OptoWall

Design concept: Fulvio Wirz

Project team: Barbara Zandavali, Fulvio Wirz, Paul Nichols, Sarah Linnel, Vera Sehlstedt, Kostantinos Agrafiotis, Nuriyah Tahsin Malik, Alexandros Koutougias, Winta Kahsay, Roberto Antonio Lopato Ricorico, Mustafa Can Gokpinar, Long Li.

Optowall is an installation produced by dFUEL (digital fabrication UEL) which represents a critical take on the role of digital fabrication in architecture. After thirty years of the first digital revolution, automation and digital technologies brought precision and mass customization with no additional cost to architecture.

However, in this fast pace some meaningful parts of our traditional process were left behind. Purist outcomes dominated by an over-precision surpassed the human touch and its aesthetics contribution. To push the current boundaries of architecture, we proposed a hybrid project that explores the combination of digital and analogue technologies Our project comprises 150 identical bricks achieved through robotic hot-wire cutting and traditional casting technics.

The particular geometry of the brick enables to assemble the overall shape with a high degree of freedom and the help of several collaborators. This hybrid approach benefits from precision and complexity of the shape, while rescue the human touch.

The combination between the brick and the overall shape’ geometry invites the users to be an active part of the installation through an instigating optical illusion: by navigating this little ephemeral space the perception of its complexity is dynamically altered by the point of view. Hence the installation seeks to blur the boundaries between technology and tradition, complexity and simplicity in contemporary architecture.