Timber Dowel Assemblies - with Robots

At the heart of the project stands the development of a new timber construction method, where short slats are held in space and locked by wood dowels. Spatially complex, the process takes full advantage of the potential for cooperative multi-robotic fabrication in the Robotic Fabrication Laboratory at ETH Zurich. The unique setup of two robotic arms suspended from a gantry allows to position and hold a timber slat in space by one arm, while the other arm drills the holes for the dowels at a defined angle. Taking advantage of the hydroscopic behavior of wood, the dowels are pre dried in an oven to facilitate their manual insertion into the pre drilled holes. Once moisture is applied, the volumetric expansion maximizes the frictional force between dowels and slats making any additional nails, glue or screws obsolete.