Tor Alva – The world’s largest 3D-printed tower

This seminar will explore the groundbreaking project Tor Alva in Mulegns, Graubünden, Switzerland’s newest architectural landmark and the world’s largest 3D-printed tower. Conceived by the Origen cultural foundation and designed by Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer, Tor Alva represents a significant milestone in digital architecture and construction.

Technical innovations include the structural use of 3D-printed concrete with thin-walled, material-efficient components, as well as modular construction for future reuse. The innovations in these research fields will fundamentally change construction, paving the way for more sustainable building practices, and were made possible by intense collaborative and interdisciplinary work with domain experts in architecture, structural engineering (Prof. Walter Kaufmann, Jürg Conzett) and materials science (Prof. Robert Flatt).

As Origen founder and theatre director Giovanni Netzer describes:

“I was fascinated by the interplay between digital design, traditional craftsmanship, cultural memory, and artistic form. The White Tower is more than a technical triumph — it inspires the building sector, encourages sustainable tourism, and offers new cultural space. It also gives a fading village a new chance. That’s extraordinary.”

Join us for an evening of insight and inspiration as we delve into the latest advances in 3D building technology, the challenges overcome in creating Tor Alva, and what lies ahead for the future of digitally fabricated architecture.

Speaker Bio

Architect Benjamin Dillenburger is Professor for Digital Building Technologies at the Institute of Technology In Architecture (ITA) at the Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich.

His research focuses on the development of building technologies based on the close interplay of computational design methods, digital fabrication and new materials. In this context, he searches for ways to exploit the potential of additive manufacturing for building construction.

He previously was appointed as Assistant Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto, and worked as a senior lecturer in the CAAD group at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s architecture department in Zurich. He holds a Master of Advanced Study degree from ETH Zurich and a Master of Architecture Degree from the Technical University Kaiserslautern.

Benjamin Dillenburger was shortlisted for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. His work has been widely published and exhibited at the FRAC Archilab 2013 exhibition, the Art Basel / Design Miami, and the Design Exchange Museum in Toronto.