At the 11th Venice Architectural Biennale R-O-B performed its first on-site assignment. For the exhibition "Explorations. Teaching, Design, Research" about contemporary methods of design research in architecture a 100-metre-long brick wall that runs as a continuous ribbon through the Swiss pavilion, was fabricated. The wall's looped form defined an involuted, central space within the existing pavilion, from which the visitor was able to access the interstitial exhibition spaces generated between wall and pavilion. Its complex shape was determined by the constructive requirement that the wall should stand firmly on its own. Where the course of the generative curve was almost straight, meaning that the elements could easily be toppled over by the visitors, the wall's footprint took on a sine-like form, thus increasing its stability. In addition, by rotating individual bricks according to the curvature, we generated the surface structure of the wall: the more crooked the line, the greater the rotation of the bricks. This further emphasised the wall's plastic deformation, which acquired an almost textile character, in pulsating contrast to the firm materiality of the bricks.

Design:
Gramazio & Kohler, Architecture and Digital Fabrication, ETH Zurich.

In cooperation with:
Reto Geiser (curator)

Project lead:
Michael Knauss

Team:
Tobias Bonwetsch, Michael Lyrenmann,
Ralph Bärtschi, Gregor Bieri, Michael Bühler,
Hannes Oswald, Lukas Pauer

Partner:
Keller Ziegeleien, Sika, KUKA Robotics