Bau Kunst Erfn­den is col­lab­o­rat­ing on a new sys­tem called So­larChip with the Helmholtz-Zen­trum Ber­lin für Ma­te­rialien und En­ergie and a con­sor­ti­um of six part­n­ers from in­dus­try. In­no­va­tive façade el­e­ments are bee­ing de­vel­oped that can ac­com­mo­date so­lar el­e­ments of any type or gen­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing fu­ture gen­er­a­tions that have yet to be de­vel­oped.

From Ju­ly 2021, BAU KUNST ERFIN­D­EN and the In­sti­tute of Ma­te­rials Sci­ence at Hof Uni­ver­si­ty of Ap­plied Sci­ences will co­op­er­ate in the TERA X | Braid­ed Wood pro­ject. The aim of the pro­ject is to de­vel­op tubu­lar solid wood braids as tex­tile se­mi-fin­ished prod­ucts for ar­chi­tec­ture and con­struc­tion. Our cont­in­u­ous fil­a­ment of solid wood meets in­dus­trial braid­ing robots. The pro­ject is fund­ed within the frame­work of the Forschungsini­tia­tive Zukunft Bau by the Fed­er­al In­sti­tute for Re­search on Build­ing, Ur­ban Af­fairs and Spa­tial Plan­n­ing´of the Fed­er­al Min­istry of the In­te­ri­or, Build­ing and Com­mu­ni­ty.

Dye-Sen­si­tized So­lar Con­crete is a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary, tran­s­na­tio­n­al re­search pro­ject ded­i­cat­ed to the de­vel­op­ment of a nov­el ful­ly struc­tu­ral­ly in­te­grat­ed pho­toac­tive ma­te­rial for use in ar­chi­tec­ture, in­fras­truc­ture, and de­sign. Based on the tech­nol­o­gy of a dye-sen­si­tized so­lar cell, this ma­te­rial us­es or­gan­ic dyes on con­crete to ab­sorb light and pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty through elec­tro­chem­i­cal re­ac­tions.

BAU KUNST ERFIN­D­EN and the De­part­ment of Plas­tics Tech­nol­o­gy at the In­sti­tute of Ma­te­rials Tech­nol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kas­sel are co­op­er­at­ing in the VO­TO re­search pro­ject. The aim of the re­search pro­ject is to de­vel­op a com­posite ma­te­rial con­sist­ing of a ther­mo­plas­tic ma­trix and embedd­ed fab­rics made from our solid wood threads. The cen­tral com­po­nent of the re­search the opac­i­ty of the façade ma­te­rial de­pend­ing on the fab­ric den­si­ty and the plas­tic, and the ma­te­rial de­vel­op­ment and char­ac­teri­sa­tion of the ma­te­rial.

The goal of the PLOT­BOT/CRAWLER re­search pro­ject is to de­vel­op a web-based, sen­sor-guid­ed au­to­ma­ton – a mo­bile robot that can be used to func­tio­n­al­ize build­ing sur­faces via the ap­pli­ca­tion of com­plex lay­er sys­tems. Its thor­ough in­te­gra­tion of tool and soft­ware log­ic al­lows it to be guid­ed over the sur­faces of struc­tu­ral el­e­ments in re­al time, re­gard­less of ge­ome­try, or di­rect­ed to fol­low a pre­pro­grammed pat­tern.

BAU KUNST ERFIN­D­EN ini­ti­ates the trans­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search net­work TETHOK | Tex­tile Tec­ton­ics for Wood Con­struc­tion with a to­tal of 7 de­part­ments at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kas­sel. The group de­vel­ops tex­tile tec­ton­ics for wood con­struc­tion. We in­vesti­gate the de­sign, shap­ing, si­m­u­la­tion, man­u­fac­ture, and con­struc­tion of lightweight load-bear­ing struc­tu­ral com­po­nents made of wood-based cont­in­u­ous-fiber tex­tiles.