Tamedia Office Building

Shigeru Ban Architects, Zürich, Switzerland, 2013

Scale: 1:50
Materials: plywood
Type: structural
Detail: 3/7
Student: Hoai Nguyen Duong, HS25

This 1:50 structural study model of the Tamedia Office Building by Shigeru Ban Architects isolates the building's exposed engineered-timber frame in its entirety, including the multi-storey column-and-beam grid, the characteristic cylindrical wooden dowel connectors at every beam-column junction, and the angled mansard-like roof truss. Constructed from laser-cut plywood flat elements for columns and beams and turned/dowelled wooden cylinders for the connectors, the model foregrounds the all-timber joinery logic that defines the building's structural identity. No enclosure, glazing, or floor plates are represented, keeping the focus entirely on the structural assembly and its bespoke connection detail.

How it's made — RAPLAB

Laser cutter — tutorial ↗
PDF export for laser cutting — tutorial ↗
Digital Workshop ↗