Monica Reading Response 004: Integrating Robotic Fabrication in Design Process

The paper “Integrating Robotic Fabrication in the Design Process” details the research done by a master’s studio on the use of robotic fabrication to inform the design process. The groups of students each created models of high rise buildings for proposed sites in Singapore. The models were created at 1:50 scale with the use of many tools and materials on the robots. This large scale offered a unique way of working through the design process, since problems of construction that would not be evident at a smaller scale presented themselves in the ten-foot towers. The use of robots to build the model required students to consider spatial relationships between the parts, as well as the order in which the pieces could be assembled. For this reason, and because each material required different assembly techniques, the author argues that the programming of the robot was a design process in itself.

The description of this project poses the question of what role the robotic fabrication process can occupy in architectural design. For these students, it was a means to work at large scales with precision, and to do it with a variety of materials, unlike a 3D print. Speed, however, was not a factor, since the programming time for new buildings must have taken considerable time.

In our class, defining “appropriate tasks” to use robots for is an important consideration, since the time it takes to set up and run an error-free program is often longer than the time taken to do it by hand. So far our primary factor has been precision, since this is one thing that the robots can certainly do better than humans. This article makes the argument that robots can allow for more complex designs while still allowing them to be modeled. It also states that students worked to design a set of processes, instead of a form. They used the movements and abilities of the robots to inform their design process, rather than simply employing the robots once the design has been made. I think that this argument for considering fabrication in form development is a strong one. Because robots don’t always expedite the creation of the model, it’s hard to argue for their use as a simply practical tool when building prototype models. Instead, robots should be considered for their specific characteristics of precision and being able to locate points in space without reference points. These capabilities allow for more varied designs, as these students found with their high rise structures. Instead of simply using the robots to quickly make their end product, they used the robots to aid in their designs from the early stages.