The National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication has now concluded.
The NCCR Digital Fabrication (DFAB) was a Swiss initiative to lead the development and integration of digital technologies within the fields of architecture and construction. Operating from 2014 to 2026 this NCCR engaged over 500 interdisciplinary researchers and participants over its 12 years. All major research projects within the NCCR Digital Fabrication engaged designers, engineers and scientists in collaboration with experts from industry. Its participants produced significant innovations and projects to validate the seamless combination of digital technologies and physical building processes in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction sectors.
The NCCR Digital Fabrication was an initiative of the Swiss National Science Foundation in partnership with ETH Zurich, and in collaboration with EPF Lausanne, Empa, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), the Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil (OST), and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). Research, projects and progammes developed within the NCCR DFAB have positioned Switzerland in a leading position within the global field of digital fabrication.
Main Accomplishments
05.05.2026
The NCCR DFAB is about to close its final chapter with a demonstrator that will stay on the ETH Campus Hönggerberg. Now rising at ETH Zurich, it brings together twelve years of digital concrete research into a single structure.
30.04.2026
The NCCR Digital Fabrication has turned a growing field into a recognised discipline. But behind the automated processes and impressive structures, another story has been unfolding. Senior Researcher Kim Nørgaard Helmersen and his colleagues at ETH Zürich have been looking into exactly that.
16.04.2026
Nicholas Steven Hoban was part of the inaugural year of the MAS ETH DFAB programme in 2015. This year changed direction of his career — and eventually, Canadian architectural education.
09.04.2026
Jonathan Leu is a laboratory technician in the concrete laboratory of the Institute for Building Materials at ETH Zurich. His path there took him through mechanical engineering studies at ETH, which he left behind in favour of the trades, an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, and years of work on…
07.04.2026
A 7×7-metre concrete slab held in a paper mould. It sounds implausible — yet this is what the spin-off company Foldcast is about to demonstrate, offering the construction industry a way to cut formwork and concrete use and carbon emissions by up to 40%.
02.04.2026
What does it mean to think and create with new technologies, rather than simply use them? That question will be addressed during the workshop sessions at the fourth edition of the Future of Construction Symposium, taking place at ETH Zurich, co-hosted by the NCCR DFAB and Design++.