Neo-Natur
Neo-Natur is an eight-metre-high permanent sculpture at the Futurium in Berlin, built from 1,500 milled wood elements derived from just 16 module types and assembled with the help of a HoloLens augmented reality application.
Project Overview
Neo-Natur, or Neo Nature, was created by ART+COM Studios for Futurium gGmbH and installed in 2019 at the Futurium, Berlin's museum of possible futures. The installation belongs to an exhibition exploring how cities and ways of living might develop, and it addresses the relationship between human technology and the natural world directly: not nature untouched, and not technology divorced from it, but a new understanding of nature that accepts technological intervention while borrowing the organising principles that natural systems already use.
The sculpture appears to grow out of the floor, twisting and climbing in all directions, and reaches roughly eight metres in height.
The Geometry: Danzer Tiling
The form is not sculpted freehand. It is generated from Danzer tiling, an aperiodic three-dimensional tiling that describes the structure of quasicrystals. Aperiodic means the pattern never repeats exactly, yet it is produced entirely by rules, so the structure can grow indefinitely without ever falling into a visible module or grid. Danzer tiling also carries the golden ratio in its proportions, the same ratio that recurs in botanical growth patterns, which is why a mathematically generated object reads as organic rather than mechanical.
That choice is the intellectual core of the piece. The apparent naturalness of the sculpture is a direct product of its mathematics, which is precisely the argument the artwork is making about nature and technology.
From Rule to Component
The tiling was developed generatively in Rhino and Grasshopper. The result is a structure of 1,500 individually milled wooden elements that derive from only 16 distinct module designs, joined by 4,500 specially engineered angle connectors. The ratio matters: sixteen module types producing fifteen hundred parts is what makes an aperiodic structure of this size affordable to fabricate at all, because the milling setup is repeated rather than reinvented for every piece.
Augmented Reality Assembly
An aperiodic structure has no repeating bay to check against and no symmetry to fall back on, so a component in the wrong place is very difficult to spot and very expensive to correct once the surrounding structure has been built on top of it. ArtEngineering developed an augmented reality application for Microsoft HoloLens that rendered the complete three-dimensional sculpture in place during assembly. The construction team could see exactly where each element belonged before fixing it, using the virtual model as the setting-out reference rather than working from printed drawings.
Production and construction were carried out by the Art Department of Studio Babelsberg, with design collaborators including Schiel Projektgesellschaft mbH, Volker Zinssmeister and apfel,hübsch berlin.
Key Facts
View key facts for "Neo-Natur".
Business Impact
- 1,500 elements from 16 module types
- 4,500 engineered angle connectors
- HoloLens AR guided assembly
Client Name
Location
Completion Year
Project Type
Tools Used in the Case Study
Discover which tools and technologies were used for "Neo-Natur".
Rhino 3D
Rhino 3D is a professional 3D modeling software used by architects, designers, engineers, and digital fabrication specialists to create accurate freeform geometry and complex parametric designs. Powered by precise NURBS modeling and an extensive plugin ecosystem, Rhino supports everything from conceptual design and architectural modeling to product development and computational design. Whether you’re comparing Rhino 3D pricing, exploring its features, evaluating the free trial, or looking for the best Rhino 3D alternatives, this guide explains everything you need to know to determine whether Rhino 3D software is the right choice for your workflow.
Grasshopper
Grasshopper 3D is the visual programming environment included with Rhino for computational and parametric design. Architects, engineers, façade specialists, and fabricators connect components on a canvas to generate geometry, process data, and test design variables without building every option manually. It works directly with Rhino’s modeling environment and can extend into BIM, analysis, optimization, and fabrication workflows through official integrations, scripting, and plugins.
User Experience
View user experience for "Neo-Natur".
Why this tool/tech was selected
Why Grasshopper and Mixed Reality on This Build
Neo-Natur is a good demonstration of a computational design chain where each tool solves a problem the others cannot, from generating the geometry to placing physical parts in space.
Rule-based geometry needs a rule-based tool
Danzer tiling cannot practically be modelled by hand. It is defined by substitution rules applied recursively in three dimensions, and the number of elements grows quickly. Grasshopper, running on Rhino's geometry kernel, is built exactly for this: encode the rule, let the structure generate, then adjust the growth and read the result immediately. Modelling 1,500 elements manually would take longer than the project allowed and would make any design change impossible.
Rationalisation into 16 modules
The commercially decisive move is reducing 1,500 unique positions to 16 repeated module types. That is a rationalisation problem: analysing the generated structure to find the smallest family of parts that can build it, then confirming that the 4,500 connector angles resolve within manufacturable tolerances. Parametric modelling is what makes that analysis tractable, and it is where most of the project's cost saving actually lives.
Augmented reality replaces the setting-out drawing
Conventional assembly relies on drawings, grid lines and dimensions from a datum. None of those work well on an aperiodic sculpture that twists in three dimensions with no repeating bays. Rendering the finished model in place through a HoloLens means the assembly instruction is the geometry itself, viewed at full scale, in position, from where the installer is standing. Mixed reality is not a presentation layer here; it is the fabrication drawing.
A note on the tool listing
aec+tech lists Fologram, the Rhino and Grasshopper to HoloLens mixed reality platform, against this case study. Published accounts of Neo-Natur credit ArtEngineering with developing the HoloLens augmented reality application used during assembly and do not name the underlying platform. The workflow described here, Grasshopper geometry visualised at full scale through HoloLens, is the workflow Fologram exists to support, but readers looking for a documented Fologram deployment should treat the tool tag as an association rather than a confirmed product credit.
Challenges the Client Faced before
An aperiodic structure has no repeating unit
The defining difficulty is that nothing repeats. There is no typical bay to detail once, no symmetry to check against and no grid to set out from, so every one of the 1,500 elements has a unique position and orientation in space.
Fifteen hundred parts, forty-five hundred connections
The connector count is three times the element count, which means the assembly is dominated by joints rather than by members. Each of the 4,500 angle connectors had to be specifically engineered to resolve the angles the tiling produces.
Errors compound vertically
At roughly eight metres in height, the structure is built upward on top of what has already been placed. A component set incorrectly early on is not a local defect; it displaces everything above it, and the cost of correction rises with every subsequent element.
A sculpture that has to read as natural
The artistic requirement was that the piece look as if it grew, not as if it was assembled from a kit. Any visible regularity or module seam would have undermined the concept, which is why the geometry had to be genuinely aperiodic rather than a repeated pattern dressed to look irregular.
Permanent installation in a public museum
As a permanent piece in a public building, the structure had to satisfy safety and durability requirements that a temporary exhibit would not.
The previous method used
The conventional way to build a complex sculptural structure is to produce setting-out drawings, mark control points on site, erect temporary jigs or scaffolding to hold elements in position, and check the assembly against surveyed reference points as it rises.
That approach depends on repetition and symmetry to make errors visible. An aperiodic structure offers neither. Every junction is slightly different, no two bays are alike, and an installer has no intuitive sense of whether a piece looks right. Numbering fifteen hundred parts and matching them to a drawing set is possible but slow, and a single misplacement propagates into everything built above it.
No published account states what method the team would otherwise have used, so this describes standard practice for complex geometry rather than a documented prior process on this project.
Time / Money saved & the Business Impact.
No cost or programme figures have been published for Neo-Natur, so none are claimed here. The verifiable outcomes are in the numbers the project itself reports, and they describe a clear technical result.
Sixteen module types for 1,500 elements
The most significant outcome is the ratio between design complexity and manufacturing complexity. A structure with 1,500 unique positions was built from 16 module designs, so the milling operation repeats rather than restarting for every part. This is the difference between a bespoke fabrication job and a production run, and on a project of this size it is the decision that determines whether the concept is buildable within an exhibition budget.
Assembly accuracy without conventional setting out
Overlaying the complete model in place through HoloLens let the construction team visualise each component's position before installing it, which the published accounts credit with improving both accuracy and efficiency. On an aperiodic structure this is not a marginal gain: it removes the principal risk in the whole build.
The design intent survives fabrication
Generative structures are usually simplified during rationalisation, and the mathematical qualities that justified them are lost. Here the golden ratio proportions and the aperiodic organisation, which are the entire argument of the artwork, remain present in the built object because rationalisation happened inside the same parametric model that generated the form.
A demonstration of mixed reality in real construction
Neo-Natur is a useful reference point for architects and fabricators considering mixed reality, because it is a completed, permanent, publicly accessible structure rather than a research prototype. It shows AR guidance being used where it has genuine advantage, on geometry that conventional documentation handles badly, rather than as a substitute for drawings on ordinary work.
Public reach
As a permanent exhibit at the Futurium, the piece is seen by a general museum audience rather than a professional one, which extends its value from a fabrication achievement to a piece of public communication about design, mathematics and nature.
Customer Quote
-
Original Case Study
Additional Information
Project credits
Project: Neo-Natur. Client: Futurium gGmbH. Location: Futurium, Berlin, Germany. Year: 2019. Status: permanent installation. Design: ART+COM Studios with Schiel Projektgesellschaft mbH, Volker Zinssmeister and apfel,hübsch berlin. Production and construction: Art Department, Studio Babelsberg. Engineering and augmented reality programming: ArtEngineering. Height: approximately 8 metres. Components: 1,500 milled wood elements from 16 module types, with 4,500 specially engineered angle connectors. Geometry: Danzer tiling, an aperiodic three-dimensional tiling describing quasicrystal structure. Software: Rhino and Grasshopper for generative design; Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality for assembly.
About ART+COM Studios
ART+COM Studios is a Berlin design studio working at the intersection of art, technology and space, known for kinetic sculptures, media installations and permanent exhibition pieces for museums and corporate clients.
Gallery
Similar Case Studies
View similar case studies to "Neo-Natur".