Riccardo La MagnaKarlsruhe Institute of Technology | KIT · Faculty of Architecture
Riccardo La Magna
Professor
About
50
Publications
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Introduction
Riccardo La Magna is a structural engineer active both in research and practice. He received his PhD summa cum laude from the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing Jan Knippers. His thesis focused on bending-active structures, with particular emphasis on the geometry and mechanics of shells and plates and their numerical simulation. He is now project manager at str.ucture GmbH and has been guest professor at the Chair for Structural Design and Technology (KET) of the UdK Berlin (2017-2018). In his research he focuses on simulation technology, innovative structural systems, and new materials for building applications.
Publications
Publications (50)
Regrowing natural materials can offer an infinite resource when maintained
properly. However, these materials are highly inhomogeneous, and their
mechanical properties are unpredictable. Consequently, they must undergo further
processing before being applied as a valid building material for contemporary
architecture. These processes, however, often...
The research presents a design-by-availability case study focusing on utilizing wood waste from secondary material streams in combination with augmented reality (AR) for complex three-dimensional assembly. It realized a double-curved shell structure using irregular reclaimed elements, seamlessly integrating digital design principles with manual cra...
Elastic gridshells are an efficient family of structures. However, stability issues arise when they are employed at large scale. When stacking subsequently bent elements in superposed layers and mechanically coupling them together, a compound beam section is achieved that can provide sufficient cross-sectional capacity and structural stability to o...
ReGrow Willow presents a willow–earth hybrid system for architectural and construction applications that enables circular material cycles through bespoke digital fabrication processes and computational tools. It incorporates lightweight, mobile, and adaptable fabrication equipment and promotes a long-term circular approach while embracing a low-imp...
The construction sector has high resource demands and generates a significant amount of waste, a consequence of its linear approach. A shift towards renewable and local material sources and the implementation of closed material cycles represent a significant opportunity for the construction industry to curtail the depletion of raw materials. To add...
As natural resources become increasingly scarce, it becomes crucial to seek solutions that promote circularity and sustainability. Embracing local materials and reinterpreting traditional architectural systems can help align the design of construction systems with these principles. Computational design methods can play a pivotal role in facilitatin...
This research investigated building components that can be produced and transported in a flat state and
transformed to a spatial state without scaffolding on-site. Curved folding was employed to allow for a shape
change between flat and spatial bending active structures. Bending generally allows for expressive curvature with
simple flat production...
Coreless filament winding is a robotic fabrication technique in which conventional filament winding is modified to reduce the core material to its minimum. This method was showcased and developed through a series of pavilions demonstrating its potential to create lightweight structures. The latest project, Maison Fibre, goes one step further and ad...
This paper presents the development of an actively controlled shape changing surface-like structure, where geometric adaptivity is utilised by local elastic deformation on the component level. Besides the physical development of a proof of concept demonstrator, the research proposes a digital form-driving process, a computational workflow which all...
This paper investigates a novel assembly system that employs tension force to transform initially planar elements into bending-active plate structures. Tension is applied through cables connecting bending-active elements. The elements are designed through form planarization, tessellation, and stripe definition on an input geometry. The system offer...
In this paper, we are presenting a design to fabrication system, which allows to produce efficiently and highly automated customised knitted textile elements for architectural application on industrial computer-controlled knitting machines (Computer Numerical Control (CNC) knitting machines). These textile elements can, in this way, be individual i...
Entscheidend für die Tragfähigkeit, Wirtschaftlichkeit und die Gestaltung von schlanken Konstruktionen aus Holz‐ oder Faserverbundkunststoffen (FVK) sind i. d. R. die Verbindungen. In diesem Beitrag wird ein neuartiges Verbindungskonzept für Stabwerkskonstruktionen aus Holz‐ oder FVK vorgestellt. Eine wichtige Eigenschaft dabei ist eine reversible...
Polymerbeton stellt, analog zum klassischen zementgebundenen Beton, ein heterogenes Gemisch aus Zuschlag und Bindemittel dar. Eine Substitution des Zements durch Epoxidharz hat tiefgreifende Auswirkungen auf die mechanischen und chemischen Eigenschaften sowie auf Herstellungsprozesse. Aufgrund seiner hohen Druck‐ und Zugfestigkeit, guten chemischen...
Extending recent work on Form Active Hybrid Structures of Active Bend and CNC knitted (Computer Numerical Control) tensile members we present a set of innovations in design and manufacturing, which together allow to build structural systems, that morph across multiple structural states. While state of the art tools and fabrications methods in texti...
Cellular structures derive their macro mechanical properties from the specific arrangement of material and voids, therefore geometry is the main responsible for the peculiar mechanical behaviour of these classes of metamaterials. By varying the geometry and topology of the pattern, the mechanical response changes accordingly, allowing to achieve a...
Emerging directly from a masterclass held by the authors at IASS 2017, this paper presents a quantitative and qualitative benchmark comparison between three distinct software environments, namely SOFiSTiK, Kangaroo and Kiwi3d, framed specifically within the context of designing and simulating bending-active structures. The three environments differ...
This paper presents the potentials of applied isogeometric finite element analysis by discussing a variety of case studies in the context of lightweight design. Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) is a modern, non-standard discretization approach for finite element analysis, which uses Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) to describe the geometry (CAD) a...
This paper discusses the design, simulation and construction of a bending-active textile hybrid structure commissioned to the authors as part of the 2018 Venice Biennale. The hybrid structure combines the flexibility and elastic properties of GFRP rods together with bespoke CNC knitted fabric, creating a subtle equilibrium of forces along the unfol...
Polymer concretes employ a polymeric binder to replace typical lime-based cements. Thanks to their high compressive and tensile strength, chemical resistance and fast curing time, their application vastly ranges from repair to precast components and structural elements for aggressive environments. In the current paper, ongoing research on the mecha...
Form-finding processes are an integral part of structural design. Because of their limitations, the classic approaches to finding a form – such as hanging models and the soap-film analogy – play only a minor role. The various possibilities of digital experimentation in the context of structural optimisation create new options for the designer gener...
The goal of this paper is to advance the research on bending-active structures by investigating the system's inherent structural characteristics and introducing an alternative approach to their design and fabrication. With this project, the authors propose the use of sandwich-structured composites to improve the load-bearing behavior of bending-act...
By distinguishing bending-active structures based on the geometric dimension of their elements, 1-d and 2-d systems can be identified. Rods and gridshells typically belong to the first category, plates to the latter. Plate-based bending-active structures present limited formability compared to rods due to the higher out-of-plane rotational inertia...
In 2016 and 2017 a master class was held at the Hafencity University Hamburg (HCU) which focused
on collaborative design and engineering methods using textile hybrid structures as a case study.
After an initial design competition where individual student groups explored design and modelling
techniques, the winning design was chosen as a case study...
The current paper discusses the role of multi-scale modelling within the context of design and structural analysis. Depending on the level of detail, a design model may retain, lose or enhance key information. The term multi-scale refers to the breakdown of a design and analysis task into multiple levels of detail and the transfer of this informati...
Polymer concretes employ a polymeric binder to replace typical lime-based cements. Due to their high compressive and tensile strength, chemical resistance and fast curing time, their application vastly ranges from repair to precast components and structural elements for aggressive environments. In the current paper, ongoing research on the mechanic...
This paper presents design workflows for the representation, analysis and fabrication of braided structures. The workflows employ a braid pattern and simulation method which extends the state-of-the-art in the following ways: by supporting the braid design of both pre-determined target shapes and exploratory, generative, or evolved designs; by inco...
Commonly referred to as bending-active, the term has come to describe a wide variety of systems that employ the large deformation of their constituent components as a primary shape-forming strategy. It is generally impossible to separate the structure from its geometry, and this is even more true for bending-active systems.
Placed at the intersect...
This paper will discuss the role of simulation in extended architectural design modelling. As a framing paper, the aim is to present and discuss the role of integrated design simulation and feedback between design and simulation in a series of projects under the Complex Modelling framework. Complex Modelling examining how methods from the parallel...
With this paper, the authors aim to contribute to the discourse on bending-active structures by highlighting two different design methods, form-finding and form-conversion. The authors compare the two methods through close analysis of bending-active plate structures, discussing their advantages and disadvantages based on three built case studies. T...
This work presented investigates the form-finding and design potentials of bending-active plate structures. Using two reference projects from the recent past, the authors present different design methodologies that either follow a geometry-based or integrated approach. A closer look at the newly accessible tools for digital form-finding and analysi...
Advanced design, simulation and fabrication technologies facilitate the exploration and transferring of the morphological principles of fibrous systems from biology to technology. The ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012 pioneered such an approach for architecture. Jan Knippers, Riccardo La Magna, Achim Menges, Steffen Reichert, Tobias Schwinn and Frédé...
This paper focuses on various analogue and numerical design strategies that were developed and implemented to generate pre-defined, free-form surfaces with parametrically differentiated bending-active components. Derived from recent research on bending-active plate structures, the authors present two case studies which both focus on the seamless in...
In the current paper the authors present two case studies which expose innovative use of FRPs in engineering and architecture. A particular focus is set on the development of the coreless fabrication process specifically devised for the projects. The coreless technique developed as part of the research, offers an alternative to classical filament w...
Das Interesse an freien Formen in der Architektur und im Industriedesign nimmt immer stärker zu. Für komplex geformte Strukturen sind faserbasierte Werkstoffe nahezu prädestiniert und bieten gegenüber klassischen Materialien im Bauwesen etliche Vorteile. Dennoch finden diese Materialien nur in seltenen Fällen Einzug in das Bauwesen. Die Abbildung v...
In the current paper, the authors developed two different numerical methods for fibre reinforced polymers. The first method deals with the simulation of an innovative manufacturing process based on filament winding for glass and carbon fibre reinforced polymers. The second developed numerical method aims at modelling a high level of material comple...
In the current paper the authors present a biomimetic design methodology based on the analysis of the Echinoids (sea urchin and sand dollar) and the transfer of its structural morphology into a built full-scale prototype.
In the first part, an efficient wood jointing technique for planar sheets of wood through novel robotically fabricated finger-jo...
In the current paper, the authors developed two different numerical methods for fibre reinforced polymers. The first method deals with the simulation of an innovative manufacturing process based on filament winding for glass and carbon fibre reinforced polymers. The second developed numerical method aims at modelling a high level of material comple...