The latest addition of Empa and Eawag’s NEST research building has officially opened on 6 October in Duebendorf, Switzerland. 

The project, called The NEST HiLo, illustrates nearly a decade of formative ETH Zurich research in architecture and sustainable technologies.

Exploring futuristic construction methods, the unit is boasting an intricate, doubly curved concrete roof, lightweight funicular floors, and self-learning building technology

The two-storey building module features a striking, doubly curved concrete roof and novel, lightweight funicular floor system which was inspired by construction methods of the past, and planned and built using state-of-the-art computational design and fabrication techniques. 

In the new unit, a team of scientists led by Philippe Block, Professor of Architecture and Structures, and Arno Schlueter, Professor of Ar- chitecture and Building Systems together with industrial partners explored how lightweight structures and efficient construction methods can be combined with intelligent and adaptive building systems to reduce both embodied and operational emissions in the construction and building industry

Resource-efficient concrete structures

The unit’s striking roof derives its load-bearing capacity from its highly curved geometry combined with a concrete sandwich structure, made of two thin layers of reinforced concrete connected by a grid of concrete ribs and steel anchors. 

To save large amounts of formwork material, the roof was built using a flexible formwork consisting of a tensioned cablenet covered with a thin membrane onto which the concrete was sprayed.

For the mezzanine floors of the two-storey unit, the researchers primarily aimed to use as little material as possible in the structure itself. 

By using a rib-stiffened funicular shell instead of a flat plate, HiLo’s lightweight funicular system uses over 70 percent less material than conventional floor slabs in reinforced concrete. Furthermore, digital production methods allowed the integration of ventilation, cooling, and low temperature heating systems into the floor structure for an even greater reduction in materials and volume.