A system for collaborative design on timber gridshells

The bent timber laths of the Sound Bites gridshell create two types of performance space over an area of almost 100 m2. Such postformed gridshells are a wellestablished design solution for creating curved forms from linear elements. Extending principles developed since the 1970s, contemporary digital tools have been utilised to drive a renewed interest in them, primarily through so-called form-finding techniques which connect digital and material models through a simulation of shape under bending loads (Nettlebladt, 2013) and the definition of efficient structural geometry acting under compression loads only (Hernandez et. al., 2012). This paper describes the workflow conceived and implemented for the Sound Bites structure. A central challenge of the research was for such a workflow to allow for the principles of gridshell design to be engaged in parallel to other tight constraints and design drivers. As such it needed to facilitate close collaboration between architectural, engineering and fabrication experts. This workflow was tested in the design and realisation of the full-scale structure within a six-week period. The gridshell design was developed through the manipulation of the shape of two edge profiles and the shell form spanning between these. Architectural and fabrication constraints were met and the workflow allowed for a sufficient level of structural analysis to be fed back to inform the design