Proceedings of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) Symposium 2015, Amsterdam Future Visions 17 - 20 August 2015, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Form Exploration of Timber-based Folded Plate Domes Andreas FALK * , Peter VON BUELOW a , Anahita KHODADADI a * KTH Royal Inst. of Technology KTH Building Materials, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden afalk@kth.se a, b University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA Abstract This paper presents a study on timber-based plate-shell domes with a set base diameter and a variety of topologies using different combinations of perforation ratios. Using a combination of geometry generation and performance optimization, parameters of folds, depth of folds, height of dome and the effect of perforations on structural efficiency, interior lighting and acoustics are explored. The combination of a visual database with both structural and architectural oriented performance parameters, gives the designer added insight in overall form determination. The overall geometry and its tessellation are also discussed in terms of environmental performance. Keywords: perforated, plate shells, cross-laminated timber, ParaGen, daylighting, acoustics 1. Introduction 1.1. Development of timber-based construction Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is a robust engineered wood product (EWP), which to date has been proposed for and applied in a wide range of structures, so far mainly due to the renewability and workability of the raw material and high element stiffness of the produced surface elements. In terms of production economy it is so far available at comparably higher cost than light timber-frame systems and corresponding prefabricated systems based on concrete elements. As environmental issues are rising in priority on the political and societal agendas globally, however, reduced resource consumption during production – compared to many non-bio-based materials and products – is getting increased recognition as well. In the cradle-to-grave perspective the energy consumption during extracting and refining of building materials have gained more interest lately and the tools for life cycle assessment (LCA) have been developed to enable true comparison between different material categories (Erlandsson et al. 2013 [1]). Through this harmonisation work considering e.g. the