Robotic Timber Construction

Several research projects (Gramazio et al. 2014; Willmann et al. 2015; Helm et al. 2017; Adel et al. 2018; Adel Ahmadian 2020) have investigated the use of automated assembly technologies (e.g., industrial robotic arms) for the fabrication of nonstandard timber structures. Building on these projects, we present a novel and transferable process for the robotic fabrication of bespoke timber subassemblies made of off-the-shelf standard timber elements. A nonstandard timber structure (Figure 2), consisting of four bespoke subassemblies: three vertical supports and a Zollinger (Allen 1999) roof structure, acts as the case study for the research and validates the feasibility of the proposed process.