upcoming: Rob|Arch 2014 Pittsburgh Workshop: Exp.Arch. REX|LAB with Harvard GSD, 14.-16.05.2014

Rob|Arch 2014 Workshop: Exp.Arch. REX|LAB with Harvard GSD, 14.-16.05.2014
Phase Change: Explorations in Robotic Forming with Thermoplastic Materials

This workshop will explore opportunities to overcome tooling limitations in the formation of individualized thermoplastic building components using robotic formation during phase change and speculative additive robotic processes (3D Printing). Explorations will include the translation of the rigid ideal of computational design space to the soft reality of an uncertain built environment as mediated by the industrial robotic work cell. In this case, the industrial robot precisely translates the digital geometry but the final form is characterized by the uncertainties of the thermoplastic material behavior during phase-change. The resulting artifacts will emerge from the integration of the precise and the imprecise through a feedback loop between the digital design environment and the results of a series of physical material experiments. Material properties are considered intrinsic to the design process and the robotically controlled fabrication process will be saturated by feedback from the behavioral logics of the material itself. The exploration of complex material behavior during phase-change will extend to the introduction of novel additive manufacturing technologies through the combination of generic robotic manipulators and custom end effectors. The introduction of additive processes begins to speculate on fabrication scenarios that distance themselves from current linear file-to-factory based methods and industrialized production-modes as well as introduces opportunities for the eventual introduction of Additive Manufacturing in Architecture.
This workshop is kindly supported by the Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design-Center for Design Research, University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Experimental Architecture-REX | LAB, and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design- Design Robotics Group.

More info here

Workshop leaders:

Chip David Clark – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Marjan Colletti – University of Innsbruck
Georg Grasser – University of Innsbruck
Nathan King – Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Kadri Tamre – University of Innsbruck
Allison Weiler – University of Innsbruck