The Research Question
Advanced fabrication methods can be difficult to adopt when their constraints reach designers too late. Digital Timber investigated how manufacturing and assembly knowledge could become useful feedback during early design.
My Role
I served as principal investigator on the Arup Global Research Challenge project in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Architects, Arup, Axis, Odico, and Aarhus School of Architecture.
The work connected industrial and academic partners around shared prototypes and evaluation. It drew on computational geometry, user-experience research, BIM interoperability, fabrication logic, and robotic workflows.
The Method
Rather than treating design and manufacturing as separate stages, the research explored interactive environments that exposed fabrication and assembly consequences while a design was still being developed.
Digital and physical prototypes helped test that relationship. Related work investigated augmented-reality-assisted assembly and how specialist knowledge could be made accessible to non-specialists.
Outcomes and Context
The wider research programme produced working systems, cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer, and peer-reviewed publications. It formed part of my doctoral research, which remained ABD; no doctorate was awarded.
Related Publication
Integrated design-for-manufacturing and AR-aided-assembly workflows for lightweight reciprocal frame timber structures, Ryan Hughes, Toni Osterlund, and Niels Martin Larsen. Construction Robotics, 2021.