Workshop @Cemex Global RD #2

Studio Robert Stuart-Smith, Weitzman School of Design | University of Pennsylvania
Collaborating Partner: Cemex Global Research HQ, Switzerland
TA: Musab Badahdah
701 M.Arch Design Studio

Students: Akarsh Sabhaney, Cai Zhang, Dongyun Kim, Hao Zeng, Lingyun Yang, Mo Shen, Qi Liu, Rui Huang, Sihan Zhu, Xiaoyi Peng, Yuting Qian, Zhaoyi Liu

During travel week Penn's 701 Studio Stuart-Smith travelled to Biel, Switzerland to undertake a workshop with Cemex Global R&D. Workshops commence with students learning about Cemex’s self-compacting concrete products first hand, mixing various mixtures and experimenting with castings. Students work in groups to develop a concept for an experimental fabrication prototype in collaboration with Cemex, and then set about fabricating molds, casting and de-molding prototypes in parallel to preparing a digital presentation that is presented to the Cemex team on the final day of the workshop. While the workshop is extremely fast paced, students have learnt a lot and achieved innovative results in short time-frames.

Design via Prototyping:
The emphasis of the workshop is on creative development of the concrete manufacturing process in order to arrive at design propositions through prototypical experiments. This involved experimentation with the fabrication process, leveraging: material mixture, material dynamics and formwork methods, in order to develop novel ideas for the use and design of concrete, integrating the material and manufacturing method as intrinsic properties of design proposals.

The Autonomous Manufacturing Lab (AML) explores the integration of robotic manufacturing and construction within architectural design. The AML aims to reduce the environmental and economic costs of design and production while enhancing their cultural and aesthetic impact. The lab's integrative methods for generative design and manufacturing are developed as semi-autonomous systems, exploring possibilities for artisanal-like craftsmanship to be scaled to large production volumes. This approach provides greater specificity and enhanced aesthetic character in design responses compared to traditional automated methods, whilst also reducing material use and waste within bespoke design and production processes. The AML's research enhances design and production capabilities across diverse manufacturing methods and materials by developing industrial and mobile robot fabrication techniques, multi-agent systems, AI/machine learning computational approaches, and applications of real-time sensor and computer vision technologies. This multidisciplinary research includes the development of Aerial Additive Manufacturing, recently published in Nature, which demonstrates the world’s first in-flight additive manufacturing by cooperating drones, representing a rapidly deployable form of collective robotic construction.

University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design
The Weitzman School of Design prepares students to address complex sociocultural and environmental issues through thoughtful inquiry, creative expression, and innovation. As a diverse community of scholars and practitioners, we are committed to advancing the public good–both locally and globally–through art, design, planning, and preservation.

AML-PENN

AML-PENN

list-teaching

AML-PENN

Workshop @Cemex Global RD #2

AML-PENN