New Pillars of Design
The White Tower demonstrates the groundbreaking possibilities of computational design and digital fabrication, which will fundamentally change conventional buildings in the years to come. Using a robotic concrete extrusion process, the concrete can be applied very specifically only where needed, thereby reducing consumption dramatically. The process no longer requires any formwork. These technologies enable modular structures that allow for on-site production, thereby reducing transport.
Fabrication
The White Tower will be printed three-dimensionally using a concrete extrusion process developed at the DBT group of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). At a total height of 29 meters, the tower will be one of the world’s tallest entirely 3D-printed structures. In this novel fabrication process, a robot successively applies 5mm thin layers of soft concrete through a nozzle. The material is soft enough to bond together and form homogenous components while hardening quickly enough to support the successive layers.
White Tower Printing
Digital technologies are also used in the design process. The entire structure of the tower is designed using custom software that allows the precise definition of the geometry and can send the necessary data directly to the printing robots. This technology enables non-standard, tailor-made elements to be manufactured efficiently. These types of forms would be nearly impossible to produce at this scale using conventional technologies. In this new construction process, the tower will be assembled from 140 individually printed concrete elements. Elements are only filled with concrete where it is structurally required, which greatly reduces material use. This construction method avoids waste because no formwork for pouring concrete is necessary. The dismantling of the White Tower is already designed at the planning stage so that it can be disassembled and rebuilt elsewhere. A mobile factory will be set up on-site, reducing the need to transport the large elements, and making the manufacturing process tangible for visitors.
White Tower Theater Hall
Point Cloud
