On the 26th of June in IAAC from 02:00 pm to 09:00 pm

Tutors:

Claudia Pasquero
Marco Poletto

International Jury Board:

Manuel Gausa – IAAC Dean
Areti Markopoulou - MAA Director – IAAC
Thomas Ermacora – Lime Wharf
Ulrika Karlsson – Stockholm Faculty of Architecture
Neil Leach – University of Southern California
Jaume Avellaneda – ETSAV-Department of Construction
Juan Carlos Sanabria – Veritas University in Costa Rica
Edouard Cabay - AA School of Architecture
Jordi Pagés – Max de Cusa Architects
Manja van de Worp – AA School of Architecture

Day 6 and 7 // From digital to material workshop, Students are 3D printing architectural components and models from their projects with local sand in D-Shape, Pisa. Thanks to Enrico and Riccardo Dini.

Day 4 //  from the hemp to the fibers workshop in Zola Predosa, Bologna. Thanks to “Signora Luisa” and her team.

Day 1 // visit Lingotto and Arduino Lab in Turin.

Prof. Ostorero have accompanied the students to visit Lingotto building, the automobile factory built by Fiat, with its amazing rooftop test track, the Jean Prouve Exhibition and the Renzo Piano Bubble .

Day 2 // visit Pininfarina and Comau factories.

Day3 // visit Vyrus and Pagani.

A moment of the presentation of RSIII Digital Tectonics – Fabrication Ecologies Research Studio, directed by Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto.

Presentation of a group of students of RSII Self Sufficient Building Research Studio, directed by Enric Ruiz Geli and Mireia Luzárraga.

During this 4 days workshop, students from the Fabrication Ecologies research line of the Master in Advanced Architecture 2013 were able to develop and test a new fabrication protocol deploying Hemp fibres by means of an industrial robot.
Through the production of a 1:1 scale prototype, the 4 teams explored the design opportunities arising from 2 different fabrication techniques developed within the Fabrication Ecologies Studio, focussed on the production of:
- an aggregate substratum via pick and place of fibrous component units.
- a non-woven fabric skin via robotic spraying of row hemp filaments.

The collaborative effort progressed in loops, with the work of one group informing the operations of the next. The feedback was mediated by a set of interfaces for real-time scanning (Kinect) and digital generative modelling (Grasshopper). The fabrication process than evolved into a conversation between designer, machine, material system, designer, prototype, machine, designer, and so on; each loop driven by a set of negotiations and specific design decisions.

Such fabrication protocol opens the possibility for a new form of participatory mass-customisation, ones that operates in real-time during and takes into account multiple factors such as design intentions, material behaviour, mechanical constraints and microclimatic conditions.

Machinic Conversations II on Vimeo.

Program Directors: Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero,

Workshop tutors: Andrea Bugli, Alexandre Dubor
Students: Jean Akanish, Drew Carson, Franciso Castillo, Marisa Charusilawong, Alexander Dolan, Kartik Gala, Sofokli Giannakopoulous, Gabriela Gonzalez, Vincent Huyghe, Yogesh Karekar, Stefanos Levidis, Iker Luna, Peter Malaga, Niccolo Marini, Priyanka Narula, Venkatakasi Raju, Aishwarya Sampath, Ahmed Selim, Jin Shihui, Georgios Soutos, Ali Yerdel

Our first experimental set up was the following:

-The robot was controlled by each student via Grasshopper, through the use of the KUKA | Krc plug-in (from association for robots in architecture) for Grasshopper and Rhino. Each group did draw a series of parametric lines that would become the tool paths for the robot.

-A video simulation with the virtual robot in Grasshopper was performed by each student to understand the behaviour of the machine along the path and amend eventual errors; the video  would allow also the testing of multiple path parameters and robot behavioural options.

-The tool mounted on the robot contained 1 fixed LED light and 2 or 4 blinking ones; the blinking was also controlled via Grasshopper and related to the robotic arm path.

-A camera was positioned in front of the robot and its exposure tuned to the particular lighting conditions and the length in time of the tool path. Such configuration allowed capturing the ephemeral lighting traces left by the robotic arm movements. The robotic behaviour is therefore translated into a 3D robotic light painting.

FABRICATION ECOLOGIES 2013
Research Line Directors: Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto [ecoLogicStudio]
Robotic Fabrication Assistant : Alexandre Dubor
Students : Venkatakasi Raju, Dolan Alexander, Ali Yerdel, Francisco Castillo, Drew Carson, Georgios Soutos, Niccolo Marini, Priyanka Narula, Gabriela Gonzalez, Jin Shihui, Nasr Chamma, Kartikashok Gala, Aishwarya Sampath, Giannakopoulous Sofoklis, Vincent Huyghe, Peter  Malaga, Ahmed Selim, Iker Luna, Yogesh Karekar, Jean Akanish, Charusilawong Marisa, Levidis Stefanos

The Masters projects by IAAC Alumni from the Digital Tectonics Studio in the 2009/2010 Masters in Advanced Architecture program are currently featured in the current special exhibition (Fab)Bots at Museo San Telmo in San Sebastian. The (Fab)Bots exhibition, created in conjunction with DHUB Barcelona, features these seven IAAC alumni projects:

Dreamweaver by Melat Assefa (Ethiopia), Brian Peters (USA), Joao Albuquerque (Portugal);
Mimicry by Mia Gorretti Layco (USA), Georgia Kotsari (Greece), Tomasz Starczewski (Poland);
Sandbot by Joel Letkemann (Canada), Viraj Kataria (India), Fabio López (Colombia);
Heliobot by Felipe Pecegueiro (Portugal), Jorge Orozco (México), Kfir Gluzberg (Canada)
Fab [a]thing by Jun Huang (China), Jessica Lai (New Zealand), Asim Hameed (Pakistan)
NGPS (Non Gravitational Printing System) by Ali Basbous (Lebanon), Miquel Lloveras (Spain)
PNEUmorphosys by Natalija Boljsakov (Perú), Brian Miller (Perú), Carlos Naranjo (Panamá)

Admission to the exhibition is free and it is open to the public until September 11, 2011.

(Above: Heliobot)

(Above: Fab [a]thing)

Note on development and methodology:

The projects in (FAB)BOTS were done by master level students of the MAA program at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC). They were developed in the design studios tutored by Marta Malé-Alemany, in collaboration with Victor Viña. The seven projects were worked on over the course of five months and supported the work through tutorials in programming and building customized robotic devices using the open-source electronics prototyping platform Arduino, which is based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Student teams were encouraged to benefit from and contribute to a large on-line community by sharing experiences with interactive projects or environments. The electronic and mechanical components of each fabrication and robotic device were produced at the Fab-Lab Bcn (IAAC).