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Robot crafts incredible art installation inspired by beetles at London's V&A

Today, London's V&A marks the start of its Engineering Season with the unveiling of an incredible new installation, Elytra Filament Pavilion. Crafted with the help of a robot and inspired by the fibrous structures of flying beetles, it follows four years of groundbreaking research on the integration of architecture, engineering and biomimicry principles.

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Elytra Filament Pavilion installation in the V&A's John Madejski Garden, featuring interconnected disc-like canopy structures inspired by beetle wings against red brick buildings.

The project's components have been fabricated by a robot at the University of Stuttgart and assembled on-site in the V&A’s John Madejski Garden. It will grow and change its configuration over the course of the event, in response to anonymous data on how visitors use and move under the canopy. This, as well as structural data, will be captured by real-time sensors installed in its canopy fibres. Throughout the season the data will be mapped and made available online. On 17 and 18 June and 22 September, visitors will be able to see the pavilion evolve as new components are fabricated live in the garden by a Kuka robot.

In what is their first public commission in the UK, experimental architect Achim Menges with Moritz Dörstelmann, structural engineer Jan Knippers and climate engineer Thomas Auer have pioneered the unique robotic fabrication technique developed by the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE).

This technique involves a novel way of winding composite materials by a robot arm – designed to harness the material properties of carbon fibres to give them strength as woven structural components. A series of these individual cell-like modules have been used to create the pavilion’s distinctive shape. On average the 40 cells of the pavilion weigh 45kg each and take an average of three hours to make.

To make each component, a robot wound resin-soaked glass and carbon fibres onto a hexagonal scaffold, before hardening. Each cell and column is individual. Its final form of densely knit fibres is a direct result of the changing stress conditions determined through structural simulation and testing carried out in advance by the ITKE.

Achim Menges said: “Based on the biological structure of beetles’ hardened forewings, we have created a novel architectural system that covers parts of the John Madejski Garden with an intricate, extremely lightweight structure made entirely from glass and carbon fibres. The canopy grows from an onsite robotic fabrication unit in response to real-time sensing data, showcasing the profound impact of emerging technologies and related new alliances between the fields of design, engineering and natural science.

"Through this, we seek to provide visitors with a unique experience of the garden that offers a glimpse of novel architectural and engineering possibilities, which may transform our built environment in the future.”

An orange Kuka robot arm fabricates fibre components for the Elytra Filament Pavilion while a technician observes in the V&A workshop
Architect assembling white fibrous filaments of the Elytra Filament Pavilion installation at the V&A
Two people stand beneath the Elytra Filament Pavilion, a robot-crafted installation of interwoven fibre structures inspired by beetle wings, in the V&A's John Madejski Garden
Three people stand beneath the geometric mesh structure of Elytra Filament Pavilion, a robot-fabricated installation inspired by beetle wing casings, displayed at the V&A
The Elytra Filament Pavilion installation at the V&A with its intricate woven black canopy suspended above the garden, supported by white steel framework and surrounded by blue construction equipment.
Elytra Filament Pavilion, a mesh structure made of interlocking geometric forms, stands in the V&A's John Madejski Garden against a red brick building
The Elytra Filament Pavilion's organic net canopy stretches overhead in the V&A's John Madejski Garden, with red-brick museum buildings visible beyond
Elytra Filament Pavilion's intricate black mesh canopy with curved white fibrous structures rises in front of the V&A's red brick building in the John Madejski Garden
View upward through the woven fibre canopy of the Elytra Filament Pavilion showing red-brick buildings of the V&A beyond the intricate mesh structure
Aerial view of the Elytra Filament Pavilion in the V&A's John Madejski Garden, showing hexagonal mesh structures arranged on the lawn with a curved brown pavilion backdrop and visitors walking through the space
Aerial view of the Elytra Filament Pavilion installation in the V&A's John Madejski Garden, showing white hexagonal and organic-shaped pavilion structures on grass surrounded by red brick buildings
The Elytra Filament Pavilion's sculptural canopy with winding fibrous forms installed in the V&A's John Madejski Garden, flanked by Victorian red-brick buildings
Elytra Filament Pavilion's intricate fibre canopy casting patterned shadows across the V&A's John Madejski Garden, with the museum's red brick building behind it
Red-brick Victorian building of the V&A museum with the Elytra Filament Pavilion's distinctive leaf-like metal canopy structures in the foreground garden
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