PENTAURA by CODA: a timber shell configurator from design to robotic fabrication

Case Study Description:

PENTAURA is a configurable timber shell system developed by CODA, a Spanish computational design and engineering practice. It produces lightweight, reversible climate shelters for public spaces across Europe, designed for dry assembly so they can be installed, moved and reused.

CODA published PENTAURA as an online configurator built with Grasshopper and ShapeDiver's App Builder. Users adapt the shell to their site and needs in the browser. Behind the interface, the Kangaroo2 solver form finds an efficient shell geometry, Karamba3D structural data drives pre calculated thickness tables that keep the app fast, and automated workflows generate the CNC timber milling and laser metal cutting files that go straight to a distributed network of robotic timber workshops in Europe.

Key Facts

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Business Impact

3 minute workflow vs 3 weeks drawing
CNC and laser files generated online
Feeds a network of robotic workshops

Client Name

Location

Completion Year

Project Type

Urban Design

Installation/Furniture

Tools Used in the Case Study

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Karamba3D

Grasshopper plug-in for 3d modeling and combining parameterized geometric models and finite element calculations

ShapeDiver

ShapeDiver turns Grasshopper definitions into secure web apps and 3D configurators that engineers, architects, clients and fabrication partners run in any browser, with no Rhino licence and no access to the underlying script. AEC firms such as Thornton Tomasetti, Ramboll, Haskoning and Walter P Moore use it to share computational design tools across offices, automate drawings and production files, and connect parametric models to their own software through APIs.

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

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Why this tool/tech was selected

CODA's team are Grasshopper experts, not web developers. They wanted to put a complex form finding, structural and fabrication workflow online without building and maintaining a separate web application. ShapeDiver let them publish their Grasshopper definition directly and build the interface with App Builder, so the people who understand the geometry are also the people who ship the tool.

The cloud computation means clients and partners can configure a shelter without installing Rhino, while the definition itself stays protected. Supported plugins such as Kangaroo2 and Karamba3D run on ShapeDiver, so the structural and form finding logic did not need to be rewritten. Fabrication files are produced from the same model that the client configures, which removes a full redrawing step between design and production.

Challenges the Client Faced before

Manual redrawing after every client or manufacturer comment.
Weeks of drawing work before fabrication files were ready.
No way for clients to explore options without CODA's specialists in the loop.
Publishing a Grasshopper tool online would have required web development skills the team did not have.

The previous method used

Parametric designs were adapted by hand for each client. Every round of feedback from clients and manufacturers meant redrawing complex geometry and fabrication documents, a process that could take weeks for a single system.

Time / Money saved & the Business Impact.

CODA's best case comparison is a three minute workflow in the online tool against three weeks of manual drawing for a complex system. The configurator turns a project that used to depend on specialist redrawing into a guided process that clients can run themselves, with structural checks and fabrication outputs built in.

Because CNC milling and laser cutting files are generated automatically from the configured design, PENTAURA can be produced by a distributed network of robotic timber workshops across Europe instead of a single factory. The same model the client configures is the model that gets built, so there is no handover gap between design and production. Building the tool with App Builder also meant CODA could launch it without hiring web developers.