At the nexus of complex ecological, socioeconomic, and sociocultural crises, the built environment urgently requires a fundamentally new approach to design, engineering, and construction. As we shift from an era of energy abundance and industrial materials to one of energy scarcity and natural materials, material intelligence will become synonymous with construction logic. “HygroShell” spearheads this paradigm shift, repurposing the previously undesirable hygroscopic material properties of wood to generate form and structure, and thus to explore a new kind of bio-based and bio-inspired architecture. 

“HygroShell” investigates a first-of-its-kind, self-shaping timber building system, heralding new material cultures in architecture. Utilizing novel computational methods to access timber’s inherent shape changing properties, “HygroShell” showcases the design, engineering, and production of a full-scale, long-spanning, lightweight shell made from flat-packed components curved in situ. Each component contains architectural, structural, and kinetic characteristics embedded into its flat state, actuating on site to produce a curved, shingle-clad, interlocked geometry.

The result is a delicately arced canopy spanning ten meters while only twenty-eight millimeters thin. Diverging from typical structural typologies, the roof’s single-curved design unlocks new potentials for resource saving, thin shell construction with bio-based materials. “HygroShell” explores an alternative approach to future-proof architecture using the fundamental properties of timber as an in situ shaping mechanism, structural driver, and design foundation. Through this computationally enabled understanding of natural materials, it is possible to achieve deeper architectural integration and ecological effectiveness in both material and form, and to explore a future-proof material culture in architecture that is both resource effective and expressive. 

“HygroShell” was developed as a research pavilion within the educational context of the international and interdisciplinary ITECH Master’s program led by Achim Menges and Jan Knippers, and highlights the importance and potentials of a cross-disciplinary, diverse research and teaching environment.