The roles of humans and machines are evolving in architecture, design, and fabrication. Developing new ways of working together is important, requiring the understanding of what roles in the design and making process are best suited for humans and for robots, or other machines. The experimental design of a unique/complex spatial structure considers many analog and digital factors and techniques. In the relationship between humans and machines in the design process, it is critical to understand the benefits of using different technologies and materials in realizing an object or structure. How can we leverage the skills, capabilities, and agency of humans and robots to create new and unique architectures?
In the architectural design process, an important role for humans is to make early design decisions, often based on intuition and/or experimentation in creating models and drawings of the design, using various analog and digital mediums for its representation. Also in this process, the role of robots operates in an advanced digital fabrication process, also allowing for a different range of possibilities for the design result. A hybrid fabrication process can explore, and even challenge, the roles of humans and robots in collaboration and assembly tasks. Hybrid workflows incorporate mediums of representation for analog and digital models and drawings, which can give designers agency to describe structures, space, materials, aesthetics, and more. When this workflow is combined with using augmented or mixed reality (AR/MR) systems in the fabrication process, they help bridge a gap from the digital to the physical realm, by enabling a human understanding of complexity in a design and its assembly and possibilities for humans to collaborate with robots during fabrication.
In this seminar, we will investigate the design agency of materiality between humans and robots using AR/MR systems. Students will explore working with analog and digital tools for creating digital and analog (made from paper &/or wood) spatial structures. In this exploration, we will look at how to leverage different tools and skills of humans and robots, as well as in different scales and formats. We will explore what the benefits are of using humans and/or robots in the fabrication process, experimenting with the material properties of wood/paper, as well as the potential agency in designing and making unique spatial structures in performing creative assembly tasks.
Working in teams, students will have the opportunity to learn and experiment with an AR workflow for designing and making spatial structures collaboratively with other students and with robots. Students will learn to use a remote system setup of a laptop running, Rhino3D, Grasshopper, HoloLens2, and the possibility of using personal AR-enabled handheld devices. Students will also be able to learn a collaborative workflow working with robotic fabrication, assisted by AR systems in the process.