Approaching Natural Complexity - The Algorithmic Embodiment of Production

A discursive history of architectural design involves varied relationships to production technologies and industry. Numerous architectural advances have been secured through the invention or exploitation of new technologies. Recent advances in robotic technologies allow design and production to be more easily synthesized for large-scale bespoke fabrication, offering widespread architectural application. Unlike mass-production and mass-customisation production paradigms, today’s robotics technologies provide the designer a more direct, variable, and messy engagement with materials and technology. This facilitates a broader architectural design agenda, only limited by its ability to systematize and actualize design intent. Architectural expression in this context, may be determined through a conscious fusion of three ingredients; design intent, production technology and physical material, with each providing constraints and opportunities.

Stuart-Smith, Robert. “Approaching Natural Complexity - The Algorithmic Embodiment of Production.” In Meeting Nature Halfway, edited by Marjan Colletti and Peter Massin, Innsbruck University Press. 2018. 260–69

meeting-nature-halfway book publication

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.

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Approaching Natural Complexity - The Algorithmic Embodiment of Production

Approaching Natural Complexity - The Algorithmic Embodiment of Production

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