Wandering under elytra wings: an exhibition made by the robots

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, marks the start of its Engineering Season with the unveiling of the new installation, Elytra Filament Pavilion. For short, a beautiful installation that changes constantly and that records the moves of the visitors. A robot – human behaviour collaboration in a engineering-art exhibition.

Elytra Filament Pavilion (open until 6th of November 2016) is one of the highlights of the V&A’s first ever Engineering Season, complemented by the exhibition Engineering the World: Ove Arup and the Philosophy of Total Design, which opens on 18 June, as well as a series of other displays, events and digital initiatives dedicated to global engineering design. (www.vam.ac.uk)

The pavilion is the outcome of four years of research on the integration of architecture, engineering and biomimicry principles. The project explores how biological fibre systems can be transferred to architecture. The pavilion structure is inspired by lightweight construction principles found in nature – the fibrous structures of the forewing shells of flying beetles known as elytra. The pavilion will grow and change its configuration over the course of the V&A Engineering Season in response to anonymous data on how visitors use and move under the canopy.

Elytra’s canopy is made up of 40 hexagonal component cells. On average they weigh 45 kg each and take an average of three hours to make. These cells and the pavilion’s seven supporting columns were created by a computer-programmed Kuka robot in a four-month construction process at the ICD’s Fabrication Hall in Stuttgart.

Elytra Filament Pavilion (open until 6th of November 2016) is one of the highlights of the V&A’s first ever Engineering Season, complemented by the exhibition Engineering the World: Ove Arup and the Philosophy of Total Design, which opens on 18 June, as well as a series of other displays, events and digital initiatives dedicated to global engineering design. (www.vam.ac.uk)

Photography: (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London