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A building corner topped by a curved, glazed concrete shell roof unit

HiLo

NEST, Dübendorf, Switzerland · 2021 · Block Research Group, ETH Zurich

A research and living unit roofed by a thin concrete shell, cast on a cable-net and textile formwork.

HiLo is a research and innovation unit on the NEST building in Dübendorf. It demonstrates how digital concrete construction can lower embodied emissions, reduce construction waste and minimise resource consumption, with three innovations: a double-curved, two-layered concrete shell; a lightweight cable-net and fabric formwork system; and a rib-stiffened funicular floor system.

How COMPAS was used

The Block Research Group used COMPAS as the central computational hub for the design development, coordination and planning of the HiLo innovations. The funicular floors were form found with compas_tna. The cable-net and fabric formwork was first tested in a full-scale prototype at ETH Zurich, whose control algorithm used COMPAS's numerical solvers.

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