Digital planning and fabrication tools enable the realisation of more and more complex freeform timber structures. Big "lighthouse" projects like the Centre Pompidou Metz or the Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Club House by Shigeru Ban drive the development of cutting edge timber technology. But to develop construction principles, details and whole process chains specifically for each new project is quite an effort. Also, the cost of custom made raw material like curved glue-laminated beams prevents the state-of-the-art technology from "trickling down" to everyday projects.
To address this challenge and make freeform timber more interesting for smaller projects, designtoproduction together with Création Holz, Blumer-Lehmann and SJB Kempter Fitze developed a standard construction system for non-standard timber structures. Extending the well-known Zollinger system by a second layer and equipped with a completely digitized planning and fabrication process, Z-Plus allows to assemble complex curved structures from simple, individually pre-fabricated timber members with very high precision.
