The architecture firm D-Fab, used a very unique method for constructing a wall in a house located in Weingut Gantenbein, Fläsch (Switzerland).
Each brick's orientation was vectorized according to a computer-modeled design intended to evoke an apparently three-dimensional image of circular forms through the pattern of the bricks and the resulting play of light and shadows. Each individual brick in the field has a function similar to that of the matrix dot in a printed image.
The brick infill panels were made in the summer of 2006 at ETH Zurich. The bricks are bonded by means of a special adhesive which makes the panel construction resistant even to tension forces. The entire production process for the 300-m2 facade was developed at ETH on the basis of initial trials in automated wall-building conducted that spring. An industrial robot constructed the panels in a fascinating spectacle: It grasped and turned each brick according to the programmed command sequence, applied precisely calculated lines of adhesive at specified angles to its underside and placed it in its exact position – brick by brick, course by course, panel by panel. Then the finished infill panels were transported from Zurich to Fläsch, where they were installed.
This computer-controlled process was employed with the goal of an extremely individualized result. By digitizing the design drawings of the facades and converting them to the scale of the bricks, they were produced materially and with relentless precision. The process makes a significant contribution to the 'iconic turn', here not in the sense of the image replacing the word, but of the expected flat wall surface or painted decoration giving way to a three-dimensional material image – to 'informed matter', in the words of the architects."
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