Materially Informed Robotic Fabrication

Abstract

Architectural robotics, as an emerging field, facilitates innovative means to incorporate informed materiality in building processes and products. Design and development of customized robotic production methods aim at achieving multi-scalar material architectures. This includes applied research through prototypical case studies on porosity, hybridity and assembly as operational design strategies that enable robotic fabrication to integrate computation, automation and materialization. The one-to-one built prototypes emphasize computation at multiple scales, automation of various fabrication techniques and employment of different materials. This integration, on the one hand, expands the material property space for architectural applications, while on the other, enhances the quantitative and qualitative performance of building spaces. Hybridization of digital design and physical production mediums advance robotics in architecture, pushing for effective and efficient materialization approaches. The versatility and programmability of robotic fabrication propose constructive systems in which on-demand design and production become feasible. This multi-scalar materialization model, tailored for robotics, leads to volumetric tectonics that perform from architectural scale, through the assemblage of unique components, to the in-depth design of material.