Hillary Davlin 004: Integrating Robotic Fabrication in the Design Process

“Integrating Robotic Fabrication in the Design Process”, written by Michael Budig, Jason Lim and Raffael Petrovic, explores the experimental introduction of robotic fabrication in an architectural academic setting. Focusing on the future migration of the city, Professor Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler have led a Master’s studio, which integrates robots into high-rise design and typologies. Students were asked to create 1:50 scale future high-rise complexes that resided in Singapore by using digital design and robots to create the physical output. By creating algorithimic design processes and then executing these moves with robots, students are able to study their physical design in a quick, iterative, and intuitive way.  The robots’ moves not only allowed the students to study their designs, but it also allowed them to reconsider the role that the robots play in the materialization and construction processes.

            This reading can easily be related to our class, Intro to Robotic Fabrication 509. As students, we are asked to design specific functions and use robotic mechanisms to achieve the physical output. Instead of designing form, or a conceptual idea, we are asked to use digital software (Rhino, Grasshopper, Kuka PRC) and then manually control the robot to produce a desired effect. By cultivating these new, digital techniques, we are able to produce quick, repetitive studies that we can instantly learn from (that is, if we run the program correctly and do not run into Axis errors...). In this sense, our role as designers slightly shifts, honing in on the logistics and “construction” processes, which are typically viewed secondhand in our core architectural studios.