Achim Menges

From April 2020, the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment welcomes Achim Menges as visiting professor. Menges is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction. During his visiting professorship, Menges will focus on the interrelations between biology and buildings.

Profile

The focus of Achim Menges’ practice and research is on biomimetic engineering and computational design methods. The wooden and fibre pavilions at the Bundesgartenschau in Heilbronn clearly express this focus on the interrelation between biology and buildings. The pavilions aim to transfer biological principles into architecture. For example, the wooden pavilion uses a new approach to digital timber construction, which is based on the plate skeleton of sea urchins. The fibre pavilion demonstrates how combining computational technologies with constructional principles found in nature enables a distinctive architectural expression and an extraordinary spatial experience.

Visiting professorship

As visiting professor, Menges will focus on the main theme: ‘Rethinking architecture - interrelations between biology and the building’, hosted by the department of Architectural Engineering and Technology. Menges will start his visiting professorship as a lecturer and tutor for the course EXTREME. In the summer 2021, Menges will give a public lecture on ‘Interrelations between biology and buildings’.