Studio Collaborates with Visiting Scholar to Test Innovative Fabrication Techniques

On September 12, a group of graduate students in UB’s School of Architecture and Planning gathered with Assistant Professor Nicholas Bruscia inside Parker Hall to showcase the early progress of their Fall 2025 design research studio. The group is testing mixed-reality fabrication techniques for architectural applications.

The studio welcomed visiting scholar Lukas Kirschnick from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, whose expertise in repurposing leftover round timber has been a key part of the research effort.

“Lukas generously shared his ongoing research and challenged the studio to engage with metal casting using digitally fabricated molds, a topic that was new to us,” Bruscia explained. “His approach to reusing discarded timber is unique, and our group project would not have been possible without his involvement.”

This timber, once likely to be discarded as firewood, was salvaged from the properties of two UB community members—a student and a professor. Now, it’s being reimagined as a valuable architectural resource. 

Using a wide array of digital and analog tools in the School’s Fabrication Workshop, this group has worked to develop a set of custom, cast aluminum connections for the timber using 3D scanning, computational modeling, and a variety of digital fabrication tools and methods.

Those aluminum connections were constructed by first shaping foam with a CNC machine and then placing those figures into plywood boxes filled with sand. In furnaces set up outside Parker Hall, the students poured molten metal into the molds, vaporizing the foam which escaped as a gas

Emily Hill from Hillpoint Scanning took 3D scans of the tree branches to enable fastening of the metal components, and she provided a demonstration of that process to the studio.

“Much was learned throughout the week-long workshop, and the students met the challenge with enthusiasm and optimistic problem solving,” Bruscia shared. “We’re currently working on a structure that will incorporate a variety of cast aluminum connection types and developing a design-to-production process that integrates 3D scan data, physics-based form finding, 3D printing, and sand casting.”

Mixed reality will also be employed to aid in the assembly of the small structure consisting of the unprocessed logs and those metal connections to demonstrate and study the workflow.

This innovative work is supported by a research grant awarded by UB’s Office of International Education, awarded to Bruscia and Professor Mark Shepard. The Global Research Scholar in Residence Grant is designed to support collaborative international research on critical global issues.