Yesterday I headed across to Zürich for a number of different meetings. One that I wanted to talk about on this blog is my visit to Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, and – in particular – their NEST building. NEST is a testbed and showcase for emerging techniques in the construction and operation of buildings. They have a heavy focus on modularization, pre-fabrication and robotics.
I’d been invited to visit by Reto Largo, Director of NEST, along with Philipp Mueller from Autodesk’s Education team. Reto wanted to hear about Dasher 360, while I wanted to hear all about NEST.
Here are some shots of the exterior:
NEST is constantly evolving as modules are swapped out and new building techniques are tested. It’s the location of the DFAB HOUSE project, where ETH Zurich is collaborating with industry partners to do some really cool stuff.
Once inside, Reto presented a bit about the DFAB HOUSE project on a video wall to which I’ll dream…