Design and automated fabrication scenario for a wood shingle-based envelope system

The building cultures of regions where plant resources abound show the adaptation of these local bio-based materials to the roofing of buildings: thatch, reed, bark or shingles. Despite a low environmental impact, these techniques require skilled manual work and remain unused compared to mainstream industrialised solutions based on terracotta, metal sheets or bituminous products. The emergence of digital tools capable of appreciating and manipulating objects with variable characteristics creates an opportunity for developing partially automated construction techniques by capitalising on pre-existing know-how. In particular, a type of wood shingle known as tavillon in Romandy, Switzerland is the primary object of this study. The objective is to describe and validate an entire construction scenario based on automation tools. The research plan paving the way for scenario implementation is another deliverable. We first carry out a state of the art of traditional tavillon technique before translating those rules into an algorithm. This instruction set is implemented in a parametric geometric model to design such roofs. Towards automation, the geometrical variability of the shingles makes it necessary to specify the model to these individual variations. A field study then demonstrates benefits from the automated installation are secured when framed into an industrial context, leading to the investigation of a panel-based prefabrication scenario.