Inspired by beetles and fabricated by robots, the Elytra Filament Pavilion’s web like structure and geometric shapes look like something out of a child’s fairy tail crossed with a futuristic city from Star Wars.
Using a pioneering technique developed at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), the architect Achim Menges with Moritz Dörstelmann, structural engineer Jan Knippers and climate engineer Thomas Auer, worked on forming the woven carbon fibres into the structures you can see in the images above.
The Elytra Filament Pavilion installation was one of the London Design Festival’s many wonderful pieces for visitors to interact with at the Victoria and Albert museum, and a highlight of the V&A’s first ever Engineering Season.
