The Making of the Sequential Roof, ARCH_TEC_LAB, ETH Zurich
Aleksandra
Anna Apolinarska, Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich
THE MAKING OF THE SEQUENTIAL ROOF, ARCH_TEC_LAB, ETH ZURICH
The Arch_Tec_Lab of the Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA), ETH Zurich, is covered
with a novel timber roof structure, developed and planned at the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication (Gramazio Kohler
Research).
The 2,308 m2 free-form roof structure consists of 168 trusses assembled robotically
from nearly 50,000 unique timber elements in a fully automated process. The complex geometry required a digital planning process
that combined design, structural analysis and fabrication details into an integrated computational workflow.
Aleksandra Anna Apolinarska of Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH Zürich was responsible for the project during the specialist
design and construction phase. She is an architect with a passion for geometrically complex shapes, computer-aided design
and digital fabrication. She gained her professional experience in renowned offices across Europe, including Foster+Partners,
designtoproduction, LAVA and UNStudio. By example of the “Sequential Roof” she will explain how innovative computational design
and manufacturing methods not only change the logistics of timber construction but also lead to novel architectural solutions.
