Engineering-integrated robotic timber diagrids: co-located analysis-to-fabrication workflow and rapid assembly

Abstract

Advanced design, engineering, and manufacturing tools linked through a common digital workflow are enabling a new approach to timber construction based on parametric, component-based systems that preserve data coherence across disciplines. This is especially important for bespoke timber structures, where fragmented exchange-file workflows often separate geometric design, structural verification, fabrication, and assembly. This paper presents a new structural system as a double-curved box-beam diagrid timber wall assembled through a robotically fabricated, self-locating wood-to-wood cross-lap grammar that can be mapped onto complex curved surfaces. Assembly intent is encoded directly into the parts through embedded positional constraints, enabling measurement-free erection and reducing tolerance stacking. A co-located computer-aided design, engineering, and manufacturing workflow is implemented to reduce drift between analyzed, fabricated, and assembled states. Validation through a 1:1 prototype includes 116 structural web elements, 624 cross-lap joints, and 200 non-structural flanges assembled in 4 hours using nominal zero-gap joints. Fabrication results show 78% average sheet utilization from 2.0 m × 4.0 m stock, with joint openings within ±0.5 to 1.0 mm of nominal. The study demonstrates a reproducible pathway for engineering-integrated design for manufacture and assembly of complex timber structures.