Giuseppe Fallacara

Polytechnic University of Bari | Poliba · Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Ingegneria Civile e dell'Architettura (DICAR)

Stereotomy, as a historical subject, shows how to build stone/wood vaulted architectural systems of hard spatial complexity, where specific geometrical rules and correspondences set the relationship between system and part. Such a difficult, but useful knowledge for the tailleur de pierre (stone cutter) can be made easily accessible by the experts,...

The age of stone architecture is timeless and has prehistoric roots; it reaches beyond all trends and tendencies; it avoids that sense of transience that mark most contemporary architecture; and, at the time, it inspires our most varied reflections and experiments, wether of constructive elements or small architectonic works. This book seeks to giv...

The examples in this book however let us project beyond those standard practices and common processes, and make the argument that there is a generation of younger architects that not only fully understand the potential of digital fabrication, but attempt to go deeper into the question of materiality, inscribing new forms into stone thus penetrating...

The chapter explains the researches who the New Fundamentals Research Group is carrying out on the digital update of stereotomy. Between the various experiments, the chapter focuses on the group or prototypes designed by the geometry of the hyperbolic paraboloid, both at the macro (architectural organism) and micro scale (architectural elements). S...

The research aims to investigate the architectural uses of free-form panels made of natural stone, reinforced through the use of carbon fiber (or glass fiber) sheets on the back, in order to build lightweight shells in granite or marble. The combination of these two materials allows reducing the thickness of the stone components up to few millimetr...

The change of technological conditions in the field of architecture is a rapid and constant phenomenon that forces architects of all ages to always be alert and updated. The inability to understand the phenomena surrounding us translates into the inability to control them and the risk of quickly becoming obsolete and losing contact with reality. Co...

This paper aims to investigate the use of Virtual Reality (VR) as a support for expositions and cultural events through the presentation of a case of study related to the 17th International Architecture Exhibition organized by La Biennale di Venezia. The idea for this experimentation was born during the period of Covid-19 pandemic, in which it was...

This contribution proposes a reflection on the evolution of the professional figure of the architect thanks to the implementation of technologies brought by the fourth industrial revolution. Technology has continually transformed the architect, expanding his skills and potential through digital fabrication tools: these allow the figure of the archi...

The proposed method for the definition of the form is based on a multi-body rope approach (MRA) with masses connected by inextensible ropes characterized by a certain slack coefficient and by different constraint conditions. These parameters played a fundamental role in the definition of the shallowness ratio of the grid (rope), and therefore in th...

Bonding lithitic blocks using a pneumatic vacuum is a born by fortune research that started in 2006 at the exhibition Città di Pietra curated by prof. Claudio D’Amato Guerrieri at the X International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. In this occasion, professors D’Amato and Fallacara presented the Alexandros Obelisk. During its deconstruction, it...

Additive manufacturing (AM) will change architecture. Nowadays a trained digital designer can control both digital and physical tools for the development of a project. The starting point of this research is Najaat, a project for an entire 3D printed village in Syria inspired by other case studies like GAIA. The project is part of a larger study abo...

Utilization of in Situ resources is a fundamental capability to be developed for the construction of permanent and semi-permanent structures on Mars and the Moon. Nevertheless, direct human contact with regolith would jeopardize crew health. New design strategies that address such problems need to be explored and developed. This paper presents a fe...

The paper concerns the theme of topological interlocking blocks for architecture and the relationship between flat stereotomic assemblies and curved morphologies. After a brief history of the subject, theoretical foundations and speculative research are presented. The research includes several built full-scale prototypes and architectural elements....

The paper describes the necessary transition from the consolidated practices of contemporary residential architecture to innovative sustainable design and construction practices, which can be pursued by applying the principles of digital fabrication to the construction industry. The contribution is divided into two parts: the first investigates the...

The present contribution proposes three projects and relative speculative reflections, elaborated by the writers, concerning the important theme of the wooden roof construction, showing the results of the three competitions organized by the Terres de Hêtre® consortium, entitled: “L’architecture au service de construction en bois de hêtre des vosges...

NNJ guest editors Giuseppe Fallacara and Maurizio Barberio introduce the papers in the special issue of the Nexus Network Journal dedicated to Stereotomy 2.0.

Guest edited issue of Nexus Network Journal dedicated to Stereotomy 2.0 https://link.springer.com/journal/4/volumes-and-issues/20-3

The aim of the article is to describe the historical background and the birth of a relatively new discipline consisting in the digital evolution of classical stereotomy. “Stereotomy 1.0” comprises the early development of the discipline primarily related to stonecutting. The new discipline, “Stereotomy 2.0” goes beyond this early concept to embrace...

This research shows the latest design experiences in the use of free-form panels made of natural stone, reinforced through the use of carbon fiber sheets on the back. The combination of these two materials allows reducing the thickness of the stone components up to few millimetres and the achievement of a great static performance, thanks the use of...

The paper aims to investigate the experiential learning approach applied to the teaching of architectural design in university courses. The introduction of IT tools in architecture in the last decades, has introduced new questions in how to teach the computer-aided architectural design to students and how to use these tools properly. Among these th...

Il fine più alto dell’architettura non è tanto quello di interpretare la società in cui viviamo, quanto di ispirarla al fine di migliorarla. Tutto questo comporta sfida, non accettazione. La sfida che le università di oggi devono porsi, quindi, è quella di promuovere un’architettura fatta sì di innovazione e di idee, ma soprattutto di valori; valor...

Mobius Sofa is inspired by the famous Mobius strip that is a surface with only one side and only one boundary. It can be realized as a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Mobius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858. The project rappresents the state-of-the-art of research into stone materials...

The research aims to investigate the architectural uses of free-form panels made of natural stone, reinforced through the use of carbon fiber (or glass fiber) sheets on the back. The combination of these two materials allows reducing the thickness of the stone components up to few millimetres and the achievement of a great static performance. The p...

Mater[i]a inaugura la stagione dei New Fundamentals Research Books, la collana editoriale del gruppo di ricerca omonimo, che raccoglierà la propria produzione scientifica elaborata sia all'interno del dipartimento Dicar del Politecnico di Bari, sia in altre sedi universitarie. Le attività del gruppo di ricerca intendono strutturarsi su tre assi por...

The paper describes the students’ works, which included posters and physical models, were the partial outcomes of the current 3rd year design studio, led by Prof Giuseppe Fallacara and taught with the support of Maurizio Barberio and Micaela Colella, both Ph.D. students at the Polytechnic of Bari. The goal was to simulate the activity of a large ar...

The paper describes the students’ works, which included posters and physical models, were the partial outcomes of the current 3rd year design studio, led by Prof Giuseppe Fallacara and taught with the support of Maurizio Barberio and Micaela Colella, both Ph.D. students at the Polytechnic of Bari. The text illustrate an experimental teaching/learni...

The paper describes the students’ works, which included posters and physical models, were the partial outcomes of the current 3rd year design studio, led by Prof Giuseppe Fallacara and taught with the support of Maurizio Barberio and Micaela Colella, both Ph.D. students at the Polytechnic of Bari. The goal was to simulate the activity of a large ar...

This contribution tries to reintroduce Stereotomy within the field of “research by design”: the discipline, in fact, can be used as a means of re-composition of the design, project and execution phases. Starting from the origin of this break-up, the focus moves to the actual value of geometric and formal prefiguration and to the validity criteria t...

Le conclusioni del lavoro mostrano come i materiali lapidei possano avere un ruolo, nell’architettura contemporanea, che va oltre quello, ormai comune, delle finiture. La combinazione delle tradizionali regole stereotomiche con gli attuali programmi di modellazione e calcolo strutturale consente alla pietra, opportunamente armata, di offrire nuove...

“Sood” is a living module consisting of external walls made of laminated wood blocks covered with natural stone. A passive house, able to cut energy consumption, thanks to high performance materials and building technologies based on bioclimatic criteria. Rediscovering the values of the Mediterranean building culture through the use of traditional...

The “E.L.I.C.A. 2” prototype is a spiral staircase with an internal load-bearing side and cantilevered steps. It consists of prefabricated modular elements, made of reinforced concrete and granulated stone, which are properly assembled to make the structure free-standing. The morphology of the steps shows a geometric complexity that justifies the u...

“Modular Stone Walls” is a construction system designed to make free-standing vertical walls, based on few “standard” blocks, made through CAD-CAM techniques of assisted cutting and CNC machines. The way each block is assembled visually conveys the idea of the solidity of the parts, thanks to the particular morphology of the whole structure, which...

"So we continue our attempts; although imperfect, the will demonstrate that there is still so much do in the art of construction and that there is still so much do in the art of construction and that architecture will not take on a new form if she doesn't honestly submit to the new processes of our age. (...) We have demonstrated in what manner the...

Starting from the reinterpretation of the natural forms that recurs in the consolidated shapes of historical buildings, the research proposes the umbrella vault as isolated selfsupporting cover. The research outcome, defined with the term "structural tree", can be considered as an extreme experimentation of the cooperation possibilities between nat...

I was particularly impressed by the authors interpretation of folio 85 1-2 [of the Voynich Manuscript] as a meta-project of Castel del Monte. With this illustration as a key to reading the monument, everything falls into place: the architectural design is revealed in its full symbolic, scientific, esoteric and functional nature. Frederick ll's "hyd...

Il libro è incentrato sul più famoso e controverso monumento di Puglia, eretto da Federico II di Svevia nell'ultimo ventennio del suo regno, sulla cima isolata ai margini dell'alta Murgia, altopiano che si estende tra Andria, Corato e Minervino. Il Castel del Monte rappresenta, per via della sua rigorosa geometria, il simbolo più alto della volontà...

The vault of the Arles City Hall, or Hôtel de Ville, represents the architect’s revenge on the corporations of masons. Completed in 1676, the relationship of span to rise of the vault make it the boldest work of masonry in Europe, and while this complex vault appears to be a unitary structure, two vaults actually share the work, leaning against eac...

The present study explores the possibility of tying up again the broken thread of research on stonecutting construction following in the wake of the discontinued weave of stereotomic culture, aiming at applying its innate creative momentum to the education of engineers and architects and to contemporary architecture.

If the treatise of 1567 by Philibert de l’Orme, as Jean–Marie Pérouse de Montclos has noted, marks the felicitous union of the knowledge of the highest level of stonemason, the appareilleur, with the printing press, the text presented here conjoins the knowledge of the appareilleur with the computer. By marrying together, in a new way, computers, c...

Parlare di progettazione stereotomica significa assumere un paradigma teorico/pratico di riferimento atto alla realizzazione di architetture concepite secondo l'utilizzo di sistemi e/o elementi architettonici voltati resistenti per forma costituiti da unità discrete e giuntate a secco. Tale paradigma è ascrivibile alle tecniche tradizionali del cos...