Towards Self-shaping Metamaterial Shells:

Abstract

Double curvature enables elegant and material-efficient shell structures, but their construction typically relies on heavy machining, manual labor, and the additional use of material wasted as one-off formwork. Using a material’s intrinsic properties for self-shaping is an energy and resource-efficient solution to this problem. This research presents a fabrication approach for self-shaping double-curved shell structures combining the hygroscopic shape-changing and scalability of wood actuators with the tunability of 3D-printed metamaterial patterning. Using hybrid robotic fabrication, components are additively manufactured flat and self-shape to a pre-programmed configuration through drying. A computational design workflow including a lattice and shell-based finite element model was developed for the design of the metamaterial pattern, actuator layout, and shape prediction. The workflow was tested through physical prototypes at centimeter and meter scales. The results show an architectural scale proof of concept for self-shaping double-curved shell structures as a resource-efficient physical form generation method.