Foster + Partners has cooked up the Exploration Pavilion in the Gingerbread City exhibit at the V&A in London, organised by the Museum of Architecture.
The project explores the mouth-watering possibilities of building with an unusual material – gingerbread. Combining emergent robotic technologies with traditional baking and handcrafting techniques, the practice has constructed an exciting and complex-shaped pavilion building.
Using innovative methods and technologies used in real-world projects, the Exploration Pavilion illustrates the interface between technology and construction. The design team, consisting of architects, programmers and modelmakers, fashioned laser-cut gingerbread blocks to form the basis of the structure. They then built a script that transformed a digital 3D-model of the building into robot language, allowing a robot arm to build the gingerbread house with great precision. The playful project makes some of the complex technology used on building projects accessible to everyone.
The pavilion is on display at the V&A Museum in London until 6 January 2019. There are several gingerbread house-making workshops taking place throughout the duration of the exhibition.