ClipHut at Hannover Messe 2018

ClipHut at Hannover Messe 2018

How can architecture and technology help combat homelessness? The “ClipHut” system, built by students of the University of Applied Sciences OWL enables fast, cost-effective and flexible construction. A start-up company is now emerging from this idea, which successfully presented a part of a ClipHut on Monday, April 23, at the “It’s OWL” community booth at the Hannover Messe.

“We have set up a ClipHut in scale 1:1 for this day,” reports Maria Wilkens from the team. Visitors of the fair were able to find out more about the plug-in system and its advantages and exchange views with the developers on site. At a test stand the designed clips could be tried out and various façade variants could be considered.

State Secretary Christoph Dammermann from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitization and Energy in North Rhine-Westphalia and Oliver Wittke, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, as well as various delegations visited the stand at the startup joint stand, tested the clip and discussed with the exhibitors the possible uses.

The project team originally consisted of 12 students of the Master of Integrated Design (MID) specializing in Computational Design. Their idea, which they presented to the public for the first time in the summer of 2017: a digitally designed construction system for temporary housing. The core structure of the ClipHut consists of milled wooden elements. OSB boards were used for the first hut. Meanwhile, the clip is optimized so far that you could make the plug-in construction from plywood or solid wood. The clips are put together to form a kind of framework. The construction is designed so that even people without skills can mount the system.

The three students Thomaz Vieira, Tomas Mena and Maria Helena Wilkens continue to develop the project independently of lectures with the support of the university OWL and the innovationslaborOWL to a start-up company. To attract investors, they presented their business idea on Tuesday afternoon at a start-up pitch event on the stage of the NRW booth.

 

Contact: cliphut@outlook.com

Website: www.cliphut.org