Twin Re-Fab: Digital twins for circular architectural renovation, digital fabrication and robotic construction

Research Project, 2023 – 2024

Accelerated depletion of natural resources and enormous carbon dioxide emissions caused by the construction industry have led to novel architectural design approaches involving reuse and renovation of existing buildings and their components. Simultaneously, rapid developments in digital fabrication technologies, such as 3D scanning and robotic 3D printing with novel fossil-free biomaterials, open unprecedented possibilities for such reuse- and renovation-oriented architectural design. Based on the above, the research aim of this project is to establish a general digital workflow supporting architectural design of renovation and reuse interventions, based on bi-directional data flows between the digital design models of reused or renovated architectural components, created by an architect, and the digital twin city platform, which serves as an active tool for design and planning of future maintenance, renovation and reuse interventions. The objective is to demonstrate, using hands-on examples and proof-of-concept workflows, how the geometric data about building components can usefully guide hands-on architectural design of machine toolpaths for robotically assisted fabrication processes supporting reuse and renovation, based on additive manufacturing, assembly and other techniques. The overarching purpose of this is to enable the combination of existing and new building components in line with the principles of circularity and reuse in construction. Conducting this investigation, in the long term, will provide knowledge that can be further developed and instrumentalized into specific solutions enabling renovations, on the construction site or close to it, of existing building systems, such as façades and cladding, structural core elements and other intricate building components. The knowledge developed in the project will also be valuable for material reuse and new design interventions into an existing context, including historic sites and culturally valuable buildings that require special care.