The Future of Timber – Rhino User Meeting 2025
18 and 19 September 2025 | Blumer Lehmann
The Future of Timber – Rhino User Meeting 2025 is a two-day event hosted by Blumer Lehmann in collaboration with McNeel Europe, bringing together leading architects, engineers, digital fabricators and researchers to explore cutting-edge developments in timber design, computational workflows and fabrication innovation.
This event offers a platform for high-quality exchange across research, education, industry and design practice – fostering conversations about sustainability, advanced digital tools and the future of timber architecture.
Programme overview
Day 1 – Symposium
18 September 2025
Location: Blumer Lehmann Headquarters, Gossau, Switzerland
Each session will feature international speakers from leading offices, research institutes and fabrication labs, followed by open discussions and panels.
| from 08.00 | Shuttle service from train station Gossau SG |
| 08:30 – 09:00 | Registration at the Stammhaus, Erlenhof |
| 09:00 – 09:30 | Welcome by the organisers of Blumer Lehmann and McNeel Europe |
| 09:30 – 11:00 | Session 1 – Matter |
| 11:30 – 13:00 | Session 2 – Form |
| 14:00 – 15:30 | Session 3 – Processing |
| 16:00 – 17:30 | Session 4 – Assembly |
| 18:00 | Drinks reception & informal gathering at Blumer Lehmann headquarters |
| from 18.30 | Shuttle service to Gossau SG train station |
Blumer Lehmann headquarters 'Stammhaus'
Day 2 – Company visit & Project visit Chäserrugg
19 September 2025
On the second day, we invite you to get to know Blumer Lehmann better by taking a tour of the company. You will gain exciting insights into our wood-related activities, from the sawmill to Free Form production. Afterwards, we will take you to the beautiful Toggenburg region, nestled between eastern Switzerland and Lake Zurich. There, you will have the chance to visit the renowned Chäserrugg summit restaurant, designed by Herzog & de Meuron. During a cosy lunch at high altitude, there will be another chance to chat informally and exchange ideas.
| 08.00 – 08.30 | Shuttle service from train station Gossau SG to Blumer Lehmann |
| 08.30 – 09.00 | Welcome coffee |
| 09.00 – 11.00 | Guided tour through company site of Blumer Lehmann, get an insight from sawmill to Free Form production |
| 11.00 – 12.45 | Transfer to Chäserrugg mountain top |
| 12.45 – 14.15 | Lunch break at Chäserrugg summit restaurant |
| 14.15 – 15.30 | Tour of the Chäserrugg building with explanations on timber construction planning and realisation by Timber construction engineer David Riggenbach from Blumer Lehmann |
| 15.45 – 17.15 | Descent and transfer to Wil SG railway station |
Chäserrugg mountain summit restaurant
Venue
Transport to Gossau SG
- Easily reachable by train from Zurich and St.Gallen, have a look at www.sbb.ch
- Transfer from Gossau SG railway station with special shuttle service to the event
- Very limited parking spaces available on site
Nearby accommodation
We recommend staying overnight in St.Gallen. www.st.gallen-bodensee.ch
Sponsor packages
Interested in exhibiting? Drop an email to ana.ascic@blumer-lehmann.com
Contact
For any questions or further information contact
ana.ascic@blumer-lehmann.com
Confirmed speakers
We are delighted to announce that we have attracted a number of renowned speakers to our User Meeting. Read on for an insight into the provisional line-up.
More information about the speakers' CVs will follow soon.
Session 1 – Matter
Session Moderator: Maria Smigielska | BFH
| Patrick Lüth | Snøhetta | Spaces for People: The Atmosphere of Timber |
| Ursula Frick | Design-to-Production | Grain Meets Algorithm: Designing Timber for Digital Fabrication |
| Erik Zanetti | DDF/KIT | Transforming Waste Wood: Digital Upcycling Strategies for Novel Building Components |
| Tiziano Derme | MAEID/ETH Zurich | Frontiers of wood between biotechnology and construction. |
| Lauren Vasey | ETHZ | To be announced |
Session 2 – Form
Session Moderator: To be announced
| Shajay Bhooshan | Zaha Hadid Architects | To be announced |
| Marios Tsiliakos | Foster+Partners | From Concept to Construction: Automation and Computational Geometry in Practice |
| Ljuba Tascheva and Matthew Tam | Bollinger+Grohmann | Learning from Complexity: Scaling Digital Workflows in Timber Engineering |
| Kenn Clausen | 3XN | in(formed) design – What is your starting point? |
Session 3 – Processing
Session Moderator: Lauren Vasey
| Alexander Dubor | IAAC - Advanced Architecture Barcelona | Robotic Wood Craft : a dialogue between material and architecture mediated through technologies. |
| Konstantinos Gavriil | SINTEF Digital | Stackable rationalization and applications to robotic timber manufacturing |
| Joaquim Escoda Llorens | BFH Berner Fachhochschule | Modular Timber Architecture as a Product: Streamlining Design-to-Production with Rhino.Compute |
| Martin Alvarez | ICD Stuttgart | Impact-driven Computation: the Universal Timber Slab project |
Session 4 – Assembly
Session Moderator: To be announced
| Martin Huber | Divario Ukraine | Where hope grows among the ruins: Housing modules, oak trees and the challenges of reconstruction in Ukraine. |
| Preety Anand | BIG | "Raumfachwerk" |
| Pierpaolo Ruttico and Ahmed Elmaraghy | Politecnico di Milano | Prompt-to-Joint. From generative code to timber construction, where design becomes assembly. |
| Koki Akiyoshi | VUILD Inc. | To be announced |
