Design and Fabrication of Grid-shells Mockups

Abstract

Statics Aware Voronoi Grid-shells have been recently introduced in the Architectural Geometry field. These are innovative gridshells endowed with a polygonal topology, whose geometry is structurally optimized by means of a novel algorithm [PTP+15]. Although being structurally effective as proved in [TPP+16] and arguably aesthetically charming, so far these grid-shells have struggled to attract architects' interest. We propose a method to fabricate a mockup of the grid shell by using modern additive 3D printing and laser cutting technologies. We also show how the realised mockup can be used to perform a preliminary validation of the simulated static performances of the grid-shell structure.