1:56 – Welcoming Note & Opening Remarks by ECC Team
8:07 – Session 4 – Digital Building Technologies
8:40 – Alicia Nahmad Vasquez (Associate Professor University of Calgary & Founder The Circular Factory)
30:58 – Lucio Blandini (Professor, Head of ILEK, University of Stuttgart) & Daria Kovaleva (
Architect, PhD candidate at Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design)
54:07 – Harald Kloft (Head of the Institute of Structural Design (ITE) at TU Braunschweig and Spokesperson of TRR 277 Additive Manufacturing in Construction (AMC))
1:16:24 – Sina Mostafavi (Associate Professor from Texas Tech University & Director of HI-DARS lab)
1:48:04 – Hanaa Dahy (Director of BioMatt Bio-based Materials and Materials Cycles in Architecture Stuttgart/Copenhagen)
2:14:44 – Panel discussion led by Alicia Nahmad Vasquez – Including Q/A
Shaping the City: A Forum for Sustainable Cities and Communities is a forum organised by the European Cultural Centre in context of the ECC Venice Architecture Biennial 2023 titled Time, Space, Existence.
Following the success of the previous editions in Venice and the United States, the third edition in Venice is scheduled to take place on 24 and 25 of November 2023 in the iconic Palazzo Michiel in Venice, Italy.
Shaping the City addresses contemporary urbanisation through the perspectives of a group of academics, urban planners, designers, architects, policymakers and scholars. The ongoing two-day discussions recognise the significant role that architecture and urban planning play in shaping people’s interaction with their cities and their well-being.
Themes
Through various presentations and panel discussions, the forum confronts the fundamental topics and perspectives that are shaping the cities around the world. Over the course of two days, six themes will be addressed and discussed by the panel of experts and academics. This edition’s themes include the following:
Emerging Pedagogies
Shaping Urban Commons
Addressing Displacements
Digital Building Technologies
Rewilding Architecture
Future of Architecture Media
Good morning everyone welcome to day two of uh the the fifth edition of shaping the city forum for sustainable cities and communities from palat Mel at the European Cultural Center uh today we have the pleasure to proceed with session number three four and five uh
But to um kick off the day we would like to show you a brief video about the exhibition time space existence that is now at H Palazo bembo palat M palat sorry and the marinara Gardens and it’s going to close tomorrow so if you have no chance to see the exhibition we
Invite you to to go and see it um and um why so important it’s important because shape in the city is part of the Pu program uh of time space existence and uh most of the phases and the project that we are going to see uh today they
Also exhibited in exhibition so let’s have a look at this video every 2 years the world stops and says how are we projecting the future of our profession and its relationship to the world we’re trying to present a laboratory for the future of urbanism but also the kind of work that we are
Doing on cities data and design Community engagement and experts as being experiments towards a better future of Cities housing is much more than the obvious it can play different kinds of roles we picked a problem that actually helped Define a typology that we could use many places I thought architecture had to have col more color more vibration I was very interested in architecture always
But after World War II it became very very boring I discovered salonic columns and arches and domes my work is it’s making fun of architecture especially of old architecture before nobody would have built this now maybe they would build It we created an installation that we call counterbalance that is eventally but we think of as a collective Furnishing we wanted something that people were immediately drawn to and that they wanted to touch and that they wanted to interact with and we were introduced by the ECC to the Fabricators
Here in Italy they helped us find a regional material and that’s something we’re thinking about in all of our projects where are materials being sourced how are they moving to get to the site how do we emphasize minimizing Waste the name of our exibition is Central homes research project it’s aim at starting the debate over temporality in settlements in the case for humanitarian and other type of of Crisis we aim to provide a solution that is more permanent more durable that protects inhabitants with a low CO2
Emissions with an affordable solution the essential homes research project is located at jardini de la marinaa we have a room at palat Samora in which we also depict the context we research photographic representations of different approach to essential homes with we have also supporting drawings physical model samples of the material
We’ve been using and also bake images of how can it be used for communities I think it’s crucial that you imagine for who you are designing and for who you’re making a home we should also think much more in a collective way it’s not just a single
Home it’s also the collective of many homes together I could learn a lot from other countries how they do their affordable housing ven is extremely important where we meet it’s important to show it to the audience to come up with idea to give politicians or developers ideas give them inspiration
But it’s also very much for the architecture Community ourselves that we Inspire each other and that we learn from each other so all come to Venice to the European Cultural Center there’s an enormous amount of exhibitions and it gives you a lot of inspiration banales are a cross-section of the future Venice
Is the primary place for Architects to come together to have discussions debate and deliberation it’s really worthwhile honestly because a lot of smart people come here people when knows in the whole world they hear wanting to see the work it’s a place where people meet and enjoy each other [Applause]
So this was the brief about time space existence exhibition uh that is as Luchia mentioned up and earning until tomorrow so yeah make sure to check it out um today we have three uh sessions during this morning and in the afternoon so the session of the morning is titled
Digital building Technologies in the afternoon we’re going to kick off um the session um with a panel discussion between kokuma Japanese architect with Boton bognar and baj bognar who is one of the partners of kokuma and a professor from Illinois University and the final panel in discussion is titled the future of
Architecture media with the editor-in-chief of tomus magazine and the managing editor of Arc da so yes please do stay with us for the entire afternoon for this morning we are kicking off this recurring theme of shaping the city titled digital building Technologies and explores the possibilities of new sustainable materials and vernacular Construction
Solutions it demonstrates the latest trends and development in architecture technology so the new advancements and these developments will highlight the conscious choices about alternative construction methods and digital techniques that reduce the impact on our environment and reduce our carbon footprint so leaders in this field will be sharing about Cutting Edge approaches
That are re revolutionizing the industry without further Ado I give it to Luchia to introduce Alicia our moderator so the session is launched and moderated by Alicia NAD Vasquez Alisha is an architect with a passion for Robotics and digital fabrication a strong believer that robotics can augment
Rather than replace human craft and that human robot collaboration is the future of the construction industry her work focuses on exploring design through integrating materials local skills and Cutting Edge design with digital fabrication Technologies such as machine learning and Robotics in relation to the contact specific environments as an
Academic and an entrepreneur Alicia is the founder of the circular Factory and Mi toolbox um Alicia is also an associate professor at the University of Calgary where she also co-directs the laboratory for integrative design so um Alicia the floor is yours and I remind uh the um
The audience connected to uh the Youtube channel that they can drop questions in the chat that is moderated by our colleague Elena so we invite you to do so okay so thank you thank you yeah yeah thank you thank you very much for the for the invitation it is a
Pleasure to be be talking here today about some of the work that we have been doing on um on the last 15 years and uh what we believe is um shaping the city or how can we contribute on the what what um believe on the digital
Fabrication and um yeah so um I’m a I’m an architect I have been working and I have been um fortunate to be working into a lot of like um applications of a technology of of a digital fabrication and digital design tools to see how can we integrate them with like uh different
Modes of of building or of Craft um and uh through throughout uh this time I have been fortunate to be uh to be able to build a lot of different um Pavilions to demonstrate some of these tools and techniques um throughout the times uh also uh from the last uh kind of 12
Years I have also started to work in like a Robotics and a digital fabrication to see how can we um help to use the machines to kind of translate or to help us work in a lot of these uh novel geometries how can we help to translate that digital to physical
Realization which I think was always um kind of a very important part of the work and and more in the context of like uh emerging um economies or like local contexts so um we started on this journey like a long time ago like in 2011 when I was um teaching at the AA
And we like really uh started to look at the different solutions this was like our little robot but I think that the strong belief that came to this time was that if we really kind of uh merge this intersection of robots with with principles of architectural geometry and
Of design that allow us allow us to be more efficient and uh have more sustainable um geometries that will be by Nature um Le less uh will be using less resources and will also have a longer lifespan and we can merge this with the construction traits and with traditional
Construction knowledge then we we will be able to build and design uh structures that will be better for the cities that will be more inclusive and that will be able to bring everyone into this new um technological world so that was like the belief and and something
That we started to work for for a very long time and how can we bring new talent but also not only talk about a crisis and about a city crisis but actually how can we bring everyone involved in the process all the stakeholders into new ways of building and and shaping our
City uh something that we really um like and I think that there was a lot of of work in into like uh that I started to really focus on is how can we move from technology into into bringing it to to like a lower scale into like actually making it more
Accessible uh for for for for for the trades and for smmes and for people that are on the building industry so I started to focus a lot more into um kind of robotic fabrication and the robots as a flexible machine that could have multiple uses and the big benefit um
That we could see on these in in in the work was that that when when when we think about how new construction or like new ways of building are made which are more related to manufacturing we can see that the small contractors cannot have access to them so so that’s where I kind
Of started to really become interested in how can we make these new processes that are super interesting fascinating can we make them um can we bring them to to the 98% of the construction industry which which we will say currently they won’t have access to these ways of
Building but but they are more they are limited by other um by traditional tools and something that also kind of started to become uh very um very present what the fact that when construction becomes manufacturing um or when we think about all of the new industry and and when it
Is um when it goes from the from the onsite to the offside to a factory the talent is different so the people that work in a factory shop are not the same people that has construction skills or trades skills so there so so this cannot be translated you need to to to have
People that has totally different skills which also means that you are losing a lot of the skills on the on the on onite construction and on people that that that have been doing this trade for for for years right so you are we are losing a lot of knowledge we need to training
New knowledge and we don’t have access to these tools for for 98% of the industry and um when and when we talk about how do we Implement digital construction methods it’s not uh it’s not so easy because to start a digital construction tends to be more expensive
You need large you need a large capital investment up front to have these very large machines that that make amazing things and to also have that the large spaces uh where you hold the machines and also um to have the knowledge of how do we use these machines so it does
Require a really Flip or a really big change on how we approach um how we approach construction and how we approach the different stakeholders that will be involved in the process uh so so how can we make these uh robots and construction more accessible and and bring them to to the
Same trades and to the same uh and to kind of not bring them but upscale the Trad so that they can also become part of this digitized economy and they can also be part of them so one of the of first things that I started uh looking
Off and I really started to fascinate me was how can we move from um design from from manufacturing an assembly or dfma which is like the Paradigm that started from the 80s and like in in in construction to to move more into like uh Robo facturing or into actually
Remove the big machines and put more of these tasks on a robot cell on the robot arm so that we can have a ma a machine that by principle is cheaper and is more flexible to do more of the tasks that are high quality and that also is more
Transportable it’s easier to move it’s easier to bring everywhere and also uh we can have local people using them and in principle has a a much lower entry level cost and and then uh with with the large um like all of the movement on like Mass
Timber uh we kind of also thought well can we move from from Mass Timber which which does in potentially move these construction workers to manufacturing workers into digital Timber or what I like to call digital Timber where we actually introduce uh the digital tools to already easily assimilate to
Assimilate workflows on on site and we canot so instead of having the cost of transporting the volumetric pieces we can just bring the robots on side assimilate them with existing workflows assimilate them with existing platforms and uh kind of avoid all the importation duties and delays and I think that um
During the last two years with like the uh covid what became very apparent to a lot of the people I was talking with is like well we did have a big disruption on Supply chains a big disruption on transport so bringing all of these big volumetric pieces became very complex
Just to think about chipping them around the world so so it kind of it was when when the idea really kind of I think we started to become more able to to make it happen because then it it just became apparent that if we bring the machines
And we assimilate them with the workflow we we don’t have to bring them a 100 times but it’s only one time and then we just fabricate on site and um and then I love this quote by Francis K which has like the more local materials you use
The better you can promote the local economy and build local knowledge which also makes people proud and I think that this is something that I I find very fascinating especially on my work um in construction is how um construction workers can be very proud of what they
Do and and that is something that unfortunately is getting lost like currently in a lot of economies construction workers are not proud of what they do they it’s just like kind of the the most basic job if they cannot do anything else in life whereas that’s not
The case in the past and in some countries it is still the case that people that are like Amazons or welders or they do they do know that this is a trade that has an a longar a long process of apprenticeship they are very proud of what they do so with that in
Terms we started to oh how do I go back sorry well sorry this is a video but it’s not uh playing can we press play no um well um weird it’s fine I will um so so like um how can we like Leverage all these Technologies to kind of establish this
Decentralized supply chain which are we have we have focus on a on flexible localized assembly and and we kind of started to think about this idea of the circular Factory uh and to to to to to leverage this technology to have very sophisticated and dynamic Custer iable
Process on site so we kind of started to think about okay what will be the best use to adapt with like um with like don’t change everything and say like now everything will be done by robots in a totally new way but how can we just adapt some little pieces uh with
Existing methods and just like change parts of the of the of the design and Fabrication process where we can actually make an impact while trying to adapt which are where which the way that things are already built so we started to conceptualize what will be the the minimal footprint
That we need to make a factory so we did a lot of work into uh designing this Factory where do materials come from where do they go how are they processed and the more important thing was having the minimal amount of machines that can make most of the work and making those
Machines to be robots so that they could be cheap and flexible I mean in comparison with like maybe five a CNC machines or other machines they are a lot more um affordable so we work into um so we so we work into the design iterations to try to get to like the
Minimal footprint like maybe like that uh 250 300 square meters to really enable to produce a large amount of products then we also at at the same time one of the biggest problems that I have found on like a lot of the of the uh digital fabrication robotic
Fabrication methods is the the digital workflows like it’s like everyone has a own customized scripts uncustomized language how do we actually make it accessible that is that you can only print like have a very easy workflow that not only Engage The trades but also Engage The designers and the the the the
Clients the real estate developers everyone on the stakeholder every all the stakeholder um process can be part of it so we started to work on a digital uh this on a digital design to production workflow um trying to have everyone um uh information for everyone
And also to have a a workflow on the shop that could allow like to go from to design to production with like the least amount of coming to change scripts and models and languages and all of these so that everyone in the in the shop floor can also have access to this information
Very easily for the production um so we create so we started to design our own platform for for this digital design workflow uh with designers uh Fabricators the assembly and finally the management onite of the construction um to to be to have access to the pieces something very important
And that came from very early on in the process was to have like a hierarchy a hierarchy iCal composition of objects so what objects actually require from digital methods which objects can just be done by traditional Timber framers by traditional construction people which objects we are going to be more focused
On and then how will this information process be translated to everyone on uh on the site and which which machines require are required for each of these processes so for every part we knew which machines are going to be used and how this is going to be distributed and communicated to everyone involved
A big opportunity came with this project this is a project built in on an island on a very remote island in the Caribbean called ratan by zaha did project so they so um I have been working with uh doing a some Pavilion for zaha in the past so
It was an in Mexico and like in in um in India these kind of economies so I was uh for so we started to think about okay can we build it on site without having to transport all of these uh complex geometries and mple pieces maybe from
Germany or from the US to the island and can we bring the robots so this was a great opportunity to to test if this could actually happen uh one of the complexities of this project is that um the way that they have designed it is that um people can customize their unit
In any which way they want so basically we did have to make the factory or the production facility to to be able to adapt to all of these different flexibility and to all of these different components sizes Dimensions uh with minimal um changes so that it could
So that if uh if if the design ends up being kind of some of any of these options we could make it on site and so we started to also kind of look at all the different pieces that require are required for this project what is the
Assembly Logics and how how will how what are the elements that they are made of and with all of this in mind we kind of um let’s see if this work we kind of have like um a process where like each piece that the Architects kind of give
To us we can um we we are looking at how will we make it what are the the different um um machines and the different steps how will it be split how will it be um like make into small components that can then allow us to fabricate it to make it to
To make it so like for example a lot of these pieces all of this is made using local Honduran Pine which is um the timber or or the kind of of of of product that was available locally and um all of all of them um kind of we get
Split they get divided and then they get again uh put together again um so so we have all of this in we we have been working on developing this platform with the idea that we can provide uh all of this information to the designer also to
The to the to the persons that are involved on the like the humans that are designing or deciding how they want their unit to be which are maybe potential um people but but like a lot of people that are involved on this on on this process and um and and they also
Can see uh where we we are really aiming to make all of this information as transparent as possible so that uh so that when when you are like normally like a client or like a manufacturer you don’t know what the piece is going on what is going on with your project when
Will you have it Etc so we are so what we are kind of trying to do on developing this platform is on having that transparency of what is the materials required the bill of materials but also all of the different machines and processes that the piece has to go
Through and and all of the different skills and traits that I will require so you can have from uh from the designers they could have this uh knowledge of okay how they change the geometry how does that impact the fabrication and also the clients that are configuring or
Designing their units they could also access the information of how do the different pieces I select change the amount of material that I need the amount of machines that will be required the fabrication times and so you can I maybe start to make informed decisions about how your your ideas will affect
Actually uh the process not only on time but all on sustainability and amount of materials and and how how is it required so we started with all of this in mind to like kind of really engage into um making this like we got a few we have
Two robots we had a Tru and then all of the other machines that are normally we work on scheduling all of these so that um so that also the workers the local workers which which we are um training into using all of the machines can also know at every step they just have
Tablets and they can know what what they have to do what is the process how much material they need how they need to lay it down how do they need to to to stack it so they can also get access to all of these and uh and then here is like the
Process so how how percentage is done how is it advancing how much how much is missing if there is a mistake all of these they can also be logging in real time and then this this information becomes again accessible downward and forward on the on on the Chain like uh for for everyone
There and and then this is like um yeah like like the different schedules where like the the workers or or everyone in the production facility like uh on the shop can know what what is going on in every machine and what what is the different steps that are required for
Each piece so with all of these we kind of uh we bring the machines it was a very scary process to be honest when you think about an island in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly it’s exciting there is the Caribbean but then suddenly when you when you’re bringing these
Machines and and they are like like the roads are not paved and Etc it does become very challenging so so it was uh it was fun also and uh oh sorry so this was our our track kind of coming down of the truck I was I was really terrified
At this moment in my life um oh this is not running but it’s okay oh sorry and and this is like uh the facility that we finally built um we have a we we we are um kind of training a people there we have like the the
Tracks we have the robots uh which are doing most of the processes the mealing assembling cutting uh we humans are doing also like the assembling uh but most of the processes are focused on these two guys there we also have other like normal shop machines maybe cnc’s
And another like a small um small shop machines all of these on the island and we have a lot of local people right now and it’s very very cool to see them how excited they get how enthusiastic they are we have got like lots of people
Coming to the shop they they are they are always trying to jog the robots to learn which is kind of people that maybe we don’t normally are think right and and a lot of them what is for me better is they are also already asking if they
Can take the facility if they can if I can make another one and they can keep this one which ideally will me will be will be fascinating if suddenly it just becomes part of the local community they they just they they just they are just
The owners of them so so that will be like an ideal kind of a scenario in the future um this is we also try to do a lot of some research project this is a project that we were working on over the summer in collaboration with aak into
More of like uh kind of using like robot like logs and and and more like uh not so much like a a real project but more into um kind of using rawood and also seeing with the local materials that are available how can we use them and how
Can we also like take advantage of maybe other Supply chains um and then we also built uh this project here that is on the palatum Mora which is one of the parts of the babo project so that we made as a prototype uh so that’s uh when
It was coming here in the summer like uh or before the summer I think earlier this year and I think it’s there still uh so this is one of those bull nooses all of this on through the platform and just using the machines uh which I think
Is um is is still at The Palazo and and kind of the different steps of the different pieces and I think that that the main idea is how can we make this digital fabrication to be decentralized distributed and Democratic for everyone so for me the one of my of my take on
That is to to make like this flexible adaptable microfactory uh develop a software that enables the stakeholder participation for designers Architects the clients but also for people on the shop they can see all the processes everything they can see how things are going and we also working on a micr credential program to
Upskill and and train all of these um all of the labor um and and and I think that how do we go from this uh and we know that with the industry 4.0 and the new um Revolution we are talking about moving from artisanal production to the
From mass production to now customize on production so how can we also make this accessible and uh for for like everyone involved in the construction industry and and and and um and and more um compatible So yeah thank you that that’s um that’s where we are at and we are
Kind of working on that so thank you very [Applause] much so um yeah I’m going to introduce the first next uh yes the speaker of the session and I’m very happy to introduce um uh Professor Lucia blandini who um a professor uh Lucio blandini is an engineer and an architect with a special
Interest for sustainable lightweight systems and the relationship between architecture engineering and digital Technologies he’s also the head of the institute for lightweight structures and conceptual design e at the University of stutgart and he’s a deputy spokesman of the collaborative Research Center 12 for for adaptive skins and instructors for
The built environment of tomorrow he’s a lead Pi within the cluster of Excellence of Integrative computational design and construction for architecture and works on the FI on the field of light concrete destructors um before coming back to the university in 2020 he spent several years in practice focusing on Innovative
Facades and light destructors World worldwide and he’s currently a partner and managing director of wner zc AG thank you very much and Lucio I give you the mic yeah thanks for the invitation and thanks for the introduction I’m very happy to be back in Venice uh after the
Inauguration so uh and I need the pointer yeah good um so today I’m going to um to present an introduction of the overall frame of research on lightweight uh and sustainable systems which uh offering the motivation for the white prototype that and me have been designing for the marinara Garden so let
Me start first of all with a research frame at the El at the university the presentation is together with yeah I can sorry my mistake I didn’t know that uh this was a joint presentation so we have um Professor Lucio and Daria who will be presenting
Together um so uh I would also like to introduce uh Daria kovaleva who um is an architect and PhD candidate at Institute of lightweight instructors for a conceptual design and uh she’s an uh PhD candidate at The Institute of lightweight design and construction e at the University of stutgart in Germany
After she graduated from the mosu architectural Institute um she worked in various architectural offices including wner sobec a in mosu and studard and in 2014 um she joined the E team in the field of functionally graded rete structors in this context she deals with lightweight construction with concrete focusing on developing digital design
Methods and sustainable production concepts for resource efficient concrete structors as part of her PhD she’s developing a waste-free production process using recyclable s uh form Works uh so the so actually the so now the talk between Professor Lucio and Daria yeah thank you I give it
Back okay so um I think now now it’s more clear we’re going to structure our our presentation I will provide as I said the research frame and the motivation and in a way the kind of big picture we are um after then and this is this is what it’s all about
Right it is about uh reducing the amount of Natural Resources we are using in architecture in the uh building industry it is a lot about reducing the amount of CO2 emissions uh which are originated by the building industry and what sometimes we forget about it is about reducing the amount of
Waste we generate out of the building industry so uh I think all of us are aware about these numbers it’s really scaring that uh our sector is in all of these free Fields responsible for more of the AL of the generation of uh and consumption of resources and so our
Research is always looking into addressing all the three of these aspects so if any of them is not uh part of the picture we just take one of the topics of the research topics out of the uh out of the screen in a way so this is
Just to understand what it is our motivation and in a way also to introduce why we do work with concrete and mineral materials just because they are so much used uh in the building industry currently so if we manage to to change in a kind of
Disruptive way uh the use that we do out of these materials then we have an impact and this is actually all what it is about and engaging digital Technologies in design engaging digital Technologies in manufacturing is for us the kind of tool to get to this Target
And uh and not the way the other way around and so this is important for us uh and I think it’s important to understand why we do certain things the way we do them and um so Alisia was uh introducing the fact that I was involved for several
Years in the practice and this is a farther motivation from my side uh all the experience I’ve been gaining in the practice are now getting back into the academic research and uh and I’m showing this project which is for sure not a small one but uh brings
Um kind of uh an introduction about certain topics that I’m going and we are going to address first of all we do need infrastructure we do need F buildings All Around the World in certain regions more than in others and so it is not about saying we’re not going to build
Farther but it’s about the way how are we going to build in the future so that we have a future proof architecture and um in this airport we buil in the the Middle East I was myself in charge of that for 5 years um we’ve been looking
For ways um to build these shell systems which are lightweight so they make use of less structures with new technology that we for instance don’t generate any waste out of it traditionally we have such kind of shell systems with special scaffolding with special formwork so
That at the end of the day we do have again a lot of CO2 emissions a lot of material use a lot of waste generated out of it in this case we have 37,000 panels 6,000 different geometries no waste out of the formwork just because we use uh a very sophisticated digital
System in the design but we also use a very sophisticated production system with adaptive forwork system only 80 pieces of them are used I’m not not going to go in detail just because of the time but it provides a bit of the motivation for our research work and one
Of the other things that is relevant to this project is all of that is prefabricated all of that is prefabricated next to the construction s so that means 0o kilometer and all of that is uh is pretty much automatized um so that we get really really effective so we can use the
Material exactly where we needed however we still need for these kind of projects a lot of concrete a lot of Steel and the question is can we further reduce that and this is uh the idea behind one of the field of research uh reducing the amount of material
Amount of concrete Concrete in the at the beginning is a fluid material so it we can get to to a poo system and that’s something that is not be done sufficiently so why don’t we learn out of biological mineral system where um the cells are organized along the for
The the force paths so that we have material where we need it and we don’t have it when where we not we don’t need it and so this is one of the inspiration so we can take at least 40% of the material out if we really engage the
Potential of having porous systems and we do have to engage this also on a material basis uh so we are also um while we are working on poral system we also consider using alternative mineral materials where we substitute for instance cement which is responsible for
A lot of CO2 8% of the worldwide CO2 emission is coming from concrete and the concrete curing process uh what about if we do engage uh bioprocess with bacteria that do the work that cement is usually doing and this is uh what we are investigating since a couple of year
With u a research field on bio Concrete where um where the bacteria are generating The Binding uh capacity for the uh for the sand and for the mineral in order not to have any CO2 emission so in the moment where we manage to scale this up we will
Have a CO2 free concrete or concrete substitution which could be a big contribution to that we do work also with uh other kind of reinforcement uh basal minor based uh but this goes too much behind behind the topic today and uh on a structural level
On a on a bigger scale we do think about ways how to introduce holos spheres made out of concrete you see a project that we are currently designing at the University for universi research where we will have hos spere made out of concrete and now you can imagine what it
Is that the contribution of digital tools we have to decide how big the Spheres are we have to decide where they are placed how is the layout uh we have to set up a kind of uh loop and iterative process and you see a couple of uh pictures below done out of the
Simulation we have to demonstrate that uh even if we have porous system that the fire resistance capacity of this system is is good enough so the picture on the bottom down in the middle is is a fire test so it was not a problem to show 90 minutes fire resistance is okay
For this kind of structure and uh I think that within 12 months we will have the first worldwide um holosphere graded concrete slab done in the W done built in stutgart so come and see it uh I will tell more than next year about that but
This just is a kind of introduction and um and here you can see I have to press I believe that the video is running yeah so now you can see how the technology is working um so we have this osphere which are which are casted um
Out of mortar and they just have 1 mm 2 mm they are very light it’s uh it’s similar technology as you know from from chocolate prants so everybody is a bit aware about how that could work and now we can feel that and we can control with sophisticated digital tool and at the
End why why are we doing all of that you can see on the on the top area a lot of this mass is void and that means we can take a lot out of it so we don’t need to have massive concrete system we can have filigree concrete system and this is
What our research is about and uh on the same time we do see that this complex uh fgre system have a need for special foam workor and uh without generating any waste and so we do use sand as material for that we do use additive manufacturing to um to make that
Possible and uh this is uh Daria PhD Focus so I’m going to use this light to pass directly than the word to a and uh she can explain more about the technology and how we use this technology for the marinara Coral Tree which is still exposed at the Marin aresa Gardens
Daria thank you Lucho so yes um the core principle within this zero waste technology for uh lightweight concrete structures when we’re using sand and water soluble organic binder is the combination of 3D printing in a powder bed because this method enables us to produce the highly complex geometries without any waste but
Also the material system composed of sand and water soluble organic binder dextrine which is usually a byproduct in the production industry and um the dextrin is being activated by the water when in in the process of printing as you can see here and then together the mixture is dried with the infrared
Lights so that it’s geometrically stable but can be easily washed away after concrete casting and demolding so we usually demolding our form formworks with the usual tap water and then the formor can be split from the excess water dried ground and put back into the cycle for the further
Production in order to produce the full scale structural component we developed together with the institute for control engineering at the University of stutgart the 3D printer with a powder bed size of around EUR pallet so let’s say 1 M long 70 CM wide and 40 cm deep and then we produce this form
More and by by water and then we activating um the binder by the infrared light so that we could eliminate all the further production steps and then are ready that’s all good yeah so that the formworks are ready um within the one printer and we test so and then we tested several
Components already on the small scale including also what Lucho showed but I would like to focus more on our first uh large scale prototype that we were very happy and very lucky to design and build for the um time space existence exhibition this year and it still stands
Until tomorrow in marinara Garden that we call a marinera coral tree so what for us was important to show actually how uh lightweight construction can contribute to the decarbonization of the industry because we see lightweight construction as the cumulative approach to reach the res the reduced resource consumption but also as
Lucho said reduced the emissions and reduce the waste and these areas are actually mutually reinforcing and enabling each other so we built our design based on this three facets or aspects of this lightweight construction first of course is minimal meaning that we are minimizing the material consumption by using structural
Optimization techniques that are available to us today but also the second is the circular production that is enabling the zero waste fabrication of such complicated structures without any waste generated in the production and of course these both first principles come to the third one which we call a regenerative capacity of
Concrete structures in general concrete reabsorbs CO2 from the atmosphere so the cmon that is present in concrete it gets it back and transforms into a calcium carbonate so you will see also later in details that such complex filigre structures also could enable to Maxim ize this
Capacity we also for our design took a very simple and very traditional structural system the transition from the flat SLP to the column uh through the capital and first we did the structural optimization to reduce the weight so we gained 60% of the weight savings and we also could provide all
The necessary reinforcement by using fiber tailor placed and also the steel connectors to provide assembly and easy disassembly and and then based on these geometries we generated our sand formworks that we split and produced on the campus so one by one with our designed machine we did uh we produced this 56
Formworks and what is important to mention is that the scent was already reused within one production cycle when we were doing the Coral Tree because we were producing the first segments and then we were recycling the formor and loading it to the further production so
We had and no waste and we also had less material for formwork production in general so I would like now to show a little bit more visuals and technical details on the movie that we prepared for you can we get just the sound a little bit louder but it’s okay doesn’t matter
So generally so we use our formworks that are geometrically stable they can easily uh sustain the hydrostatic pressure of concrete but at the same time they are readily water soluble so the with with this with this method we could produce very complex structure that would not be possible to do any
Otherwise so that became actually the background or the backbone for the design that we had when we uh generated the very um complex three-dimensional structure with the maximized stiffness that helped us to save the material and at the same time when you cast the concrete in the formwork it en
Ables you also to provide fully reinforced structures and integrate a lot of complex elements such as steel implants and the um Distributors for the stress concentrations further we used also the raw materials as well as the recycled materials as I mentioned earlier and they could the formwork material can be
Easily recycled within the compus facilities so that’s no problem we did it also on on our own and then this material can can be directly loaded for the further production here you can see one of this uh uh for more segments that we did for the upper elements that was printed with a
Resolution for around 1.2 mm in the course just of the several hours so actually we could go with the production pretty fast and what is also important that the formor material doesn’t shrink because it dries layer by layer and we could assemble them in into cast the bigger
Concrete components for more than one and a half m in bright and and length and then we integrated of course all the necessary reinforcement and the connectors in our casting procedures we use self-compacting very liquid concrete that could fill all the cavities of such formworks and already in the 24 hours
The formworks are ready for um demolding and they can be transported into the washing station where we could actually directly wash the formwork out with a tap water in a course of several minutes as you can see here yeah so at the end we have these uh
Components that we produced we have in total nine uh modules that were later packed and transported into Venice and we also could assemble yes and we also could assemble the structure pretty fast just in the course of one day and we also had the really optimized compared to our previous project number
Of connections so we had just the eight uper Connections in between the segments and then the four connections to the capital and column and when the uh scaffold was released then we were um already be able to um explore the regenerative potential so as I mentioned generally mineral materials they have
The capacity to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere so basically calcium hydroxide that is present in hydrated cement is acting with the CO2 and is being transformed into a stable mineral of calcium carbonate and water so why lightweight Construction is important because by maximizing the surface area as this reaction propagates from the
Periphery inwards it is possible to actually fully carbonate the structure and also having reduced cross-sections and having also non-corrosive reinforcement the carbonation should consider in the future from our point of view as a positive aspect because the concrete can completely offset CO2 emissions this is what we believe in and
We are also currently doing our further research on accelerating this process so that it doesn’t happen in the course of 100 years but actually just in the course of few hours and we are currently building The Accelerated carbonation chamber so I guess that’s all from us if
You want to add something but yeah very [Applause] good so just just a quick remark on on top of it um what we find out is that uh the quality text textile quality of this uh of the system is very important so we don’t we have different scales of the
Architectural design you could see it how uh the fact that it is 3D printed uh it leaves a certain uh texture certain textile uh quality surface quality which captures the light in a in a nice way so I was saying at the beginning it is about poral system because of the
Performance but I want to keep it for the end the uh the statement that it is not only about the performance it’s also about the aesthetic of these kind of systems because you can make visible how this porous system are not only working well but are also engaging people in a
Different way and bringing qualities additional qualities and of course aesthetical qualities architectural qualities is a part of sustainability so this is something I think we should also keep in mind um yeah thank you thank you very much for the presentation um Lucian Dara and uh for our next speaker I’m going to
Introduce uh Harold koft uh Harold is a professor for structural design at the TU on branway in Germany as a co-founder of the engineering firm office for structural design he has a wide range of experience in the realization of nonstandard structures together with his team at The Institute of structural design he
Researchers Innovative digital Manufacturing Technologies for the construction sector uh the interconnected understanding of materials technology a structural design and the manufacturing process forms the basis here as well as circular thinking since 2020 harl koft has been the spokesperson for the DFG collaborative Research Center trrr 277 ad additive manufacturing Construction
At the TU on branchway and the TU Munich thank you and Harold thank you very much Alisia for the nice introduction thanks Hardy for being here and S so I titled my lecture renewing the logic of form and uh I try to give a more holistic view on uh the
Time where we are in construction and uh if you reflect there are many things which are fascinating us on the on the city of wenice but one for sure is the architecture so uh more or less everything here in the city is out of Natural Stone and so
There is not the question about engineers and Architects uh this is material what we took out from the nature and what we had to bring into those fascinating shapes and forms and The crucial thing on this is to understand the material so uh manual work uh was uh the basis and
You have to understand the material and the tool and the material they are unified I think this is absolutely important and if you reflect now jump into today’s uh construction environment the typical city of Frankfurt you see a lot of cranes here so we work to get
Today on site and like Daria and Lucio presented what is possible with concrete but we don’t see this in in our on on the normal construction sites what we see is um the mass production on site and um so there is for sure not a Unity
Of the material of the potential what we saw before of concrete and uh what we get here uh in construction today and and besides this we have a lot of inefficient material usage by putting Concrete in standard formwork we also have an high environmental impact we have low
Productivity uh lack of skilled workers but also uh a lack of quality and safety at work so all together uh we need a change and Nicholas Mark uh in his article Rel related to the opening of the this year’s Bala he wrote about the Paradox of construction in the period of
Climate change that means uh we saw also before we have all this pollution emissions in the construction sector and also waste but on the other side we have still increasing world population and the climate change also is uh is there already so we need infrastructures to protect
Ourself and so we have have to continue we have to build more in the future than now but the question is how can we build for more people with less resources and less emissions if you look to other Industries for example the con the automotive sector so then you see the
First uh patented uh Motorway uh mercedesbenz and a contemporary S-Class model and there there is no discussion about the Brokers so it’s it’s OB wires and if you reflect then there is a continuous technological development so the different stages in industrialization up to Industry 4.0
Where we are today and on the other side if you look to construction so this is uh the bow Academy in Berlin by shinkle and on the right side is a contemporary housing project in Frankfurt so many would say the left one by shle is quite aesthetically more more interesting and
Is more promising so there is no technological progress uh on wires of course we have this new uh technical installations inside and insulation and so on but from the architectural point of view you don’t see this progress and if you look to the Technologies on site so on the left side
The standard forwork was patented and developed uh over 100 years ago and still this is the standard technology on construction side so we already started also to transfer the ideas from the other industrial sectors to construction but this onetoone transfer of an industrial serial production didn’t work and so we
Had also the results of monotonous neighborhoods and this is why the material concrete also in the in the social in the society has not this uh good rumor and also in steel construction if we reflect so we have the standard steel profiles which are industrially produced
Which of course uh at as a profile itself are optimized from the shape uh but how we use it in construction uh so the structures itself are not optimized often it’s more geometric planning than really efficient design and so we are working now on new
Ideas how we can renew the logic of form that also what you presented so that we really minimize the material input and we combine and get back uh the original feeling that the tooling the Technologies the material and the design really form a uni we see today’s there are a lot of digital
Technologies possible so in the digital environment to visualize our dreams is not a problem so artificial intelligence gives us totally new ideas how the future could look like but the main thing is we have to take the responsibility for manufacturing so how we bring those ideas into reality this is the main uh
Challenge we have to do in the future I started 20 years more than 20 years ago in the office of Bing and croman as a young engineer and uh I came up in that time of Reform architecture and this was my my first uh time I came into in in touch with digital
Fabrication and uh so in that time we already had these nice ideas which you could do in the digital environment and we started to to bring them into reality by transforming Industrial Products so we were always on the search what kind of material we could bring into uh those
New shapes and this was really amazing time I learned a lot and uh I just give you a small inside in the first um uh project which was done in the seamless digital workflow from design to to fabrication and I’m happy to have Bernard funen here the architect so we
Came together and that project more than 20 years ago got friends and uh so this is an experience which uh up today is we will never forget this yeah and uh so it’s always the same so we had nice ideas and we were able to to to
Calculate so but this was not a question on calculation the question was what what kind of material could fit into the shapes and here you see um this acrylic plates uh they have defined measurements defined thickness by the industry you get and then you have to do your own
Puzzle so we uh had to more than 300 different uh acrylic sheets each different so for each we had to do a CNC mold each we had to bring by uh heating up into into the mold and finally the original idea was to Clue the pieces
Together uh and this was done close to insb in Austria and we wanted to fly this bubble over the Alps to Frankfurt which at the end didn’t work but uh we had the Digital Data and uh so we translated uh a primary structure out of aluminum and at the end it was really
Successfully and only with this experience it was possible to do a few years later the Kun house and cratz which is now now 20 years ago and still an architectural Milestone uh I think of this period is a fantastic building but we had to learn that this is was not the
Future was not the future to use Industrial Products and customize them individualize them for just for one project much to cost intensive too much waste and this is why those kinds of architecture couldn’t uh survive so what is the future Direction the future Direction We Are convinced of additive manufacturing additive Manufacturing in
Construction is a new technology we are researching on and it combines Automation in the process but individualization in the outcome so this is exactly what construction needs and um you can can see here the difference just columns so the left side is a a column column concreted column with
Formwork a lot of formwork you complex formwork you need on the right side is uh a column by natural stone and both are dealing with masses so the Natural Stone you have to take out the Mass from the nature and in subtractive manufacturing you have to design or bring this Mass into shape
And the same with the left side cubic meters and tons of concrete you pour in a formwork so all also you deal just with the mass but 3D printing in the middle is I don’t know if it is working again uh no um is different why is
Different because you start not to to arrange masses you start to to print so you print a line and you have to do before you print a path planning so this is a mind gap before you print a line you have to think what kind of line what
Is really needed you never come up to the idea to print a massive column like it is done in Natural Stone in the subtractive manufacturing and like like like it is done in a in a p concrete column you just need a ring so you bring the ring and uh so you
Have by just by this small mind Gap you reduce the material you you which is needed by 50% and also gives you the additional uh possibility to add functions so you could also bring into um post tension elements for design for deconstruction so to deconstruct the concrete column
Later on which is not possible with a p concrete so it’s a total different world of thinking which opens um by additive manufacturing and we are happy uh two days before we get the prolong uh to prolong the project for another four years uh with the ti Munich and TI brke
We are in a collaborative Research Center and we develop new technologies from different materials concrete Steel uh um Earth material and also fibers in additive manufacturing processes but the all over idea is not just to substitute one technology handcraft manual Technologies by new technologies is much
More to see it in a complete digital workflow that means also the design for additive manufacturing is different and so this is why we have this combination of more than 29 project uh researchers uh in 18 18 interdisciplinary projects so in the middle you see the a material
And uh process uh environment but also design and construction and computational modeling are closely related to get totally new ideas yeah and in prik the basis for running such uh collaborative research centers are of course in on one side the people but on the other side also the
Research facilities so we have the digital building fabrication laboratory DB dbfl which we constructed in 2016 already and now uh brand new the digital construction site a huge cobal robot and mobile robots where we do this um research on site under environmental conditions and here you get some Impressions um about uh the
Dbfl so reinforcement of course is a important topic concrete without reinforcement uh you can curve of course uh single or double curve but also the surface articulation what you mentioned Lucio is uh is is um a topic for some projects you you keep this wave like
Character for others you want to have a smooth surface so we have also Technologies to smooth the surface so we focused in the last years on large scale onet toone building components and uh you see here columns walls uh lightweight structures also ripped ceilings um and the
Reinforcement uh this is I don’t know this is turn around okay um so we also this is also interesting you know when you have uh 3D printing immediately after printing you can work with the fresh green State concrete if you use a formwork you have to wait and when you
Remove the formwork the concrete is hardened here the concrete is fresh so you can also screw inside reinforcement after Printing and we have this those two tracks um that we have this combined digital processes for concrete Printing and reinforcement uh implementation so either you prefabricate the reinforcement so then the reinforcement
Supports the concrete you spray on or the opposite direction you first print the concrete and then it supports the reinforcement so you don’t need additional supporting reinforcement for which you need in normal Concrete Construction of course the force flow uh uh the optimized Force flow uh um design
For still for a single beam uh is efficient and here you have to plan um the concrete pathes uh along the reinforcement pathes so this is what you can do in the combination with computational design of course but what is now really in the next phase more challenging for us is uh
The larger scale so when you see here I took this image a few days before in when in in Joda so this trade lines in coastal protection so there is not a windy day but by just adding mass as resistance against uh the Water it starts to to
Weave and so this is not the natural shape to resist and uh with computational design we we do we can analyze we also the depth in the water is uh very important uh about the the height of the wheed and so we’re thinking on totally new design for Coastal protection protection
So we want to absorb the energy by the form this is a new thinking renew the logic of form not just resist by mass but much more to do computation design and try to absorb as much energy as possible just by the shape and then you could also use cre
Materiality uh uh to to take the rest to absorb the rest of the energy so also has not to be one homogeneous material over the whole uh length um and so this is where we focus on here and then also use different materials in additive manufacturing so concrete is
Really CO2 intense so that means try really to minimize uh the concrete uh use but if you deal with Earth material this is the opposite the material the CO2 footprint of of Earth material is nothing so then you need not you would you don’t need to bring this in that
Shape so you could also do Straight walls and here is for robotic rounded Earth uh a new idea which we could use in housing because in housing maybe we don’t need this kind of shaped balls uh which we need for example in coastal production uh protection so and then other
Technologies we have exhibited here palamora the injection 3D concrete printing so concrete is not just material to to bring into surface shapes no we uh print Concrete in a fluid with the same density and then immediately after the Matrix come out of the nozzle it gets stable and holds its position
And when it’s get harded we can take it out and so there are new ideas to to do Bridges and also 3D printing is not just we want not just to substitute immediately all the other Technologies also there is uh the possibility for hybrid manufacturing that means to combine the industrial solutions for
Example of concreting slabs but not 30 cm thick just maybe 8 or 10 cm thick or even less and then print on top the ribs so P Luigi Nai he used this feros formworks which was a lot of work but this nice expression of the slaps we can
Easily get back by printing fresh on Fresh uh the concrete uh on a concreted plate and also in steel construction what we are doing today when we calculate uh steel structure then we have the the locations where we have the maximum bending moments and the maximum
Shear forces and then for this area we calculate the whole profile and then the whole length is this dimension of the profile so in most areas this kind of height and related also to to to to um the mass of this uh steel structure is
Not needed so we want to look for new hybrid manufacturing so we reduce the height in general so we do some way middle value for the geometry and then we strengthen in those area which are highly uh stressed by print on top on those profiles just some ribs or we add
Uh material at the flanes so this is also saving a lot of material and is possible to combine both so at the end just a small remark digital tools are the drivers to renew the logic of form but the basis is our architectural engineering creativity and uh as well we
Have to respect the rhythm of the nature and our responsibility to keep nature in Balance thank you very [Applause] much yeah thank you thank you very much Harold for that fantastic presentation um so uh for the next presenter I’m going to introduce um Cena mustafavi um Dr Zena it’s a dual presentation also
Right shall I intro I’m G to present it myself okay sorry uh Dr Zena mustafavi is a practicing architect researcher and educator with computational design and Architectural robotics expertise um he’s currently an associate professor at Texas Tech University hakabe College of architecture and and he is the director
Of the high DARS lab hybrid intelligence design and Architectural robotics systems uh prior to his role at uh Texas he held the research and faculty positions at telf in the Netherlands the Dasa house in Germany and in the UK his research centers on Innovative applications of emerging materials and
Technologies powered by a fusion of human and machine intelligence for integrated design inclusive Automation and circular production he holds a doctoral degree from T Del where he was the manager of the robotic building lab of the at the hyper Body Research group at bayk c as a practicing architect he’s
The founder of setup architecture an award-winning a studio aiming to adapt digital design to Production Technologies to geocultural specificities his projects have gained Global recognition exhibited in venues like the Venice architectural vial the center p in Paris and the dut design week Dr Mustafa has received several Awards including itier award Continental
Continental Euro Asia award and the emerging scholar digital Futures award in 2021 he has been serving at the as a member of the board of directors of Acadia and the editorial board member of aak thank you thank you so much I think yeah that’s that’s my presentation yeah thank you Alicia for the
Introduction um and yes yeah thank you Alicia and the ECC team for arranging this wonderful uh event uh uh we are delighted and honored to be part of this uh uh Forum um I’m CA Mustafa V associate professor at Texas St University uh presenting also on behalf of my colleague and collaborator
Dr Asma Manan who unfortunately is not able to join us today uh she’s currently in us and it’s 4:00 a.m. there so uh today’s talk is the divided into two parts the first hybrid intelligence and extended modalities of materialization which aligns with the theme of digital building Technologies
And the second part is about our project uh called fabric XR which is currently at palat Moro uh at Texas Tech uh uh I’m leading haar’s lab hybrid intelligence design and Architectural robotic systems and Dr Mahan is leading um architectural Humanities and urbanism aulab the showcased uh work at ECC architecture
Vbal unites both disciplines under an inter disciplinary project umbrella so starting with the first uh part um uh starting with the context um um the as I said before the lecture is divided into two parts uh containing three sections in totals and the context provide uh a background to my works on
Architectural robotics and design computation so I could go to next one yeah in the context of digital building Technologies much of what we do is about human machine interaction and collaboration and how um um I believe the essence of what we do is as Architects Builders and innovators has
Radically changed uh and evolved where boundaries between digital fital and uh physical Realms are converged so moreover the Focus lies on how we translate intricate physical production systems into programmable uh processes as you can see in this uh case in loom in this case in looms machine they’re
Using similar Punch Cards that they were using um um in early computers like IBM computers so uh and at the same time um uh much of what we do is about how we can redefine the fundamental ways of materializing architecture what are the the fundamental difference when we
Subtract the material out of a mass like the cases that we were seeing before and what are the differences when we assemble uh materials together in an additive uh Manner and how do we associate uh performance criteria with topological and geometric variations and how do we benefit from this complexity
Like the case that you see on the left where the uh different sizes of the cavities in this music chamber result into better performance so the complexity resulting to a better performance so ornament is not only um an aesthetic feature but also a performative aspects and how digital
Technologies can uh allow us to to provide uh higher level of resolution and Beyond um looking into the finished product how we can look into the sequences of constructions because when when we work with automation the sequence of construction and sequence of assembly is extremely important and I
Think uh like the cases that we were seeing in the previous presentations looking into the sequence of construction and Manufacturing other Industries is also informative and in a larger scales how through simulation and computation we can save lives and matters uh um use less materials and also through
Simulation we can uh uh predict uh performance uh or U function of the design and when it comes to constructibility I would like to argue that like usually um what we see visually as simple is not necessar necessarily constructable at least in this case as you can see here The
Architects were were initially initially proposing two uh three simple curves one straight curves and one circular curves but the the construction Engineers came up with this idea of representing the whole shape with a more visually complex uh continuous curve but since this is mathematically explainable and describable um we can address any point
In space so what we usually uh consider visually complex is not necessarily complex when it comes to fabrication and how we can benefit from a complexity in multiple scales right so how we can um um benefit from complexity in micro scale and macro scale and then how these
Uh um um different scales change change the way we design so again again to give another another background um uh much of what we do is about how emerging Technologies are transforming the experience and practice of architecture and um how we can bridge the gap between design and construction using different
Disciplines such as automation computation and uh innovation in materialization moving to the second part of uh the presentation I would like to uh share uh some of my previous projects on architectural robotics which is summarized in this recent book of Minds called hrid intelligence in architectural robotic materialization
Which introduce um um paracity hity and assembly as three pillars of working with robots when we materialize our our building components so paracity is very much about like how we can control the ratio between mass and void so and when it comes to paracity um um uh I believe
The computation of paracity usually uh use um techniques such such as infity element methods which result into what we call the discrete geometry and these discrete geometries like the way we were seeing in some previous presentations are not necessarily fabricable so how how do we translate this uh discrete
Geometry into continuous paths for robotic fabrication I think is one of the main challenges when when it comes to uh additive additive manufacturing and then at the same time how can we customize our setup production setup according to different material properties different material resolutions these are uh some of the
Early works that I’ve been doing to Del uh which was about like printing on previously sub subtracted uh form workk to to minimize the um effort for creating complex uh double uh single cature in this case uh geometries and how we can work with this systems and uh
Develop our systems as we um progress with the design and then use different disciplines such as structureal analysis structural optimization and then how again we translate the results of um fin element method to continuous tool paths for robotic 3D printing so in this case we were developing a method to uh follow
The same let’s say Point Cloud which is extracted from the topology optimization and then in a continuous manner uh um print uh this P structure layer by layer I think I missed one slide never mind so these are these are some of our recent work at Texas te University which
We are also extending our robotic fabrication lab looking into again um continuous tool paath strategies for uh concrete robotic 3D printing among other works the second pillars of um robotic materialization um to me is hybridity which was also address in some of the previous presentations which is about on
The one hand working with multiple materials so how we can enable our our processes and ourselves to compute multim materiality uh but at the same time how we can benefit from combining different methods of fabrication so whether it’s combination of additive and substractive or even in this case combination of two
Substractive processes and informing our geometry or the way we chop down our geometry into smaller components according to fabrication Logic for instance in this case you see like how the combination of um um developable surface es which are producible with Hotwire cutting is combined with like double curvature surfaces which are
Producible with milling and then how this is informing our our design in an iterative Manner and then looking into the hybridity when it comes to like combining multiple materials how we can benefit from robotic fabrication to uh combine different materials and potentially also change the behavior of
Uh certain materials so for instance in this case we are we are approaching Milling um in a unconventional way we are peeling off uh let’s say um um Stripes of materials from a rigid cork boards which result into a certain controlled flexibility in order to translate this let’s say solid um um um
Materials into a bendable uh materials for uh acoustic purposes or looking into the ways we can rethink about um formworks rather than using a a two-sided formworks work with in this case four-sided formworks to um allow us to keep some part of the formwork without any use of a glue um and then
Again benefit from the the combination of two materials uh which uh in this case combines uh structural capacities of a concrete and insulative capacity of uh foam and looking to the ways we can again combine different techniques of manufacturing so in this case looking into the ways we can combine
Substractive and add manufacturing which somehow is summarized in this uh project called hybrid chair which again combines different techniques of fabrication and the design is informed according this according to these different techniques of fabrication so we’re using Hotwire cutting where we have single curvature surfaces and Milling is only applied
Where we need double curvature surfaces and like concave surfaces and then uh additive manufacturing is then applied uh where the seating is um uh taking place and then obviously working with different resolutions and like embedding Engravings in this case for uh the add additive manufacturing to happen and
Then as you can see here again as said before like working with multiple scales in this case um um even in the um uh printing of the Silicon on top of this uh uh um uh EPS uh there is a uh let’s say uh U intricate um pattern of uh C
Curves which sort of disappear as we get into TP tip of the canver and then this result into a stability on the lower part of the cells the last part is about assembly how we can grow larger larger than the size of the production system or the production setup that we have and
And I think I think this is one of the fundamental aspects of uh working with architectural robotic systems when it comes to architecture because um um um if you look into automotive industry so the production system can be larger than the car that we are producing but when
It comes to um architecture I think looking into the ways uh that address assembly um during the production of uh our our structures or after the production of our structures is u a key compon component and how we can work with potentially one detail and one building um so and then altering that
Details in order to achieve the complexity that we are uh looking for um to conclude this part I would like to um uh elaborate on uh three aspects uh of working with um um architectural robotic systems one is data driven and integrated design the second part is applied and experimental
Spectrums of our research and then um uh multidisiplinary and immersive medium mediums when it comes to architectural education and also architectural practice so um as said before uh much of what we do is about how we can control complexity and then how we can benefit from the complexity and when it comes to
Complexity uh um things like structural analysis or environmental analysis are more measurable but I do believe that like there are other aspects of um um architectural performance that we can also make measurable and then benefit from another level of complexity so in a way um um our project our our process is
Very much about like how we can work with multiple materials multiple skills and multi uhle modes of uh construction and Fabrication and address multi criteria in our performance um and working with famili families of objects so rather than working what with one single um um um um
Type of components how we can uh uh think about the process almost as a kind of a dissecting or surgery process and uh and then address the simulation early in the design and when it when it comes to families of objects according to the production system and then according to
The prod production space we can expand our let’s say capabilities in in production um and uh producing uh larger families of objects um and then um I I think there’s a fundamental difference between what we do in research and practice but uh back to what also Alisha was addressing about like how how
Digital Technologies can make um um Craftsmen and and Builders proud I think this is also a good example um a recent uh project of ours which we finished um uh with uh collaboration with local Craftsman uh and then in this case we are combining uh local Stone craft with
Uh digital fabrication and addressing uh two levels of uh let’s say tolerances and resolutions one working with uh metal which is um um um cnced and cut uh using uh digital fabrication and then using natural stone to to combine this these two two let’s say levels of
Tolerance and then uh this result into a kind of a dry assembly for uh constructing Stone um uh elements so um this was also addressed to some extent like embracing the resolution and tectonics uh um obviously like increasing the resolution can result into better um um design and better um U
Outcomes but uh it is also very much about like how we Embrace this uh resolution as you uh could see also in the previous project um in stone and and looking into the cultural references is also important because like one of the drivers for instance uh for the previous
Project was also uh giving reference to um technology such as mes but I would argue that like when it comes to um um um uh digital fabrication and also like using of AI uh and generative AI we are we are very much also like dealing with certain level of bias and like
Embedded bi us in our our our um um computational systems and and processes and then we were looking into this u in a in a recent publication of us which we are looking into the way uh um generative ai’s sort of bias towards certain uh regions and certain um um
Backgrounds so one of the one of the critiques that I got from uh got about the former project that I showed was um that like uh the windows that uh you saw in that building is also similar to the Windows 95 which if you think about
It is maybe true because I’m also a Windows 95 generation and how how we are also like in a kind of a uh unconscious way we are biased about what we design is also I would say important and back to the Windows 95 gener generation this
Was also one of the early early games or early examples of uh simulation based games which I was really uh fascinated about uh which basically use a very simple Galileo um projectile uh formula but there is also um a certain level of let’s say um um simulation and
Complexity here which I think when it comes to the context of um um today’s architectural education and Architectural practices working with this um um simulation based and systemic uh uh thinking way of like design and uh developing processes is also very much important so in a way in multiple levels
Data is the new material that we are working with and and this range from uh Urban scale to material scales uh and uh fabrication scale and to which extent the the the the data can be personalized is something that we were also looking into especially um uh the installation
That we are showing in the uh bnal so we were looking into the way the personalized data can result into uh um a mode of uh generation or creation so uh in this case the students were looking into the way they were reacting to different musics or different movies
And then this resulted into kind of a direct translation of um design to materialization this this project was called quantify me which was about like again uh looking into the personalized level of data and um um also looking into um what is called uh Soft Robotics or human robot
Collaboration um um so I think working within industrial robots is is fascinating but I also like the way um um um robots which are designed for human robot collaborations can also provide another let’s say adjacency or like another proximity to the robot setups uh we were looking into U the
Ways we can uh use robotic fabrication using uh um this cobots and then how we can um uh let’s say train our robots for assembly but when this comes to assembly I think one of the fundamental um uh or important aspect is like uh usually humans are more smarter when it comes to
Assembly so on the one hand we can design our projects for for assembly but at the same time I think augmented reality can also provide a lot lot of opportunities for for um growing larger than the production setup that we have or otherwise we have to like really com
Customize our our components for specific uh cobotic assembly processes like the way you see here in this reciprocal system um I’m going to skip uh this last part because I think I’m running out of time but um to conclude uh we were also looking into the ways we can collaborate
With other Industries like in this case we were collaborating with Audi uh there we were asked to to design a shell for a a car a city car and then we were looking into the ways we can collaborate with other disciplines such as design um um U Department in this case together
With Architects and also looking into the ways we can also customize our materials which I think somehow also connect to the next presentation um and then how how we can customize our materials according to different techniques of fabrication for inance in this case we are using bioplastics but
In one of the processes we are using additive manufacturing so we are customizing that materials for uh additive manufacturing processes and then we we are customizing the same material for casting or cutting and there is a um um uh let’s say um um threshold between the way we can
Customize these materials and when it comes to architectural education and Architectural practices this is very much changing the landscape of our architectural practice and Architectural education to the extent that we uh rather than designing uh for um um let’s say known components the way this this I
Would say poor robot is trying to uh assemble this this um um uh board um uh is is one way to look into the to the Automation and other ways to customize our design for for Automation and and production processes uh moving to the last part of
Uh our presentation which uh share our experience and our project in patam Mora um the project is titled fabric exr uh which again brings two disciplines of architectural Humanities and Architectural robotics together we were looking into the ways we can um U map uh fital data into into a into this latis
Structure so that’s why uh we are again working with different disciplines and we have the chance to also work with different sponsors such as EX3 and um um augmented reality webs AR which is an uh online augmented reality platforms and then we are bringing again two disciplines of design competition and
Fabrication and um urban community design development and then the bridge between the two is um the the platforms that we develop in a web uh um web platform which I’m going to uh explain later again this is an overview of the research poster which is also presented
In the um palat Moro again bringing three disciplines of um design competition fabrication uh urban community um uh development which is mapping in this case social environmental justice in two cities of Amsterdam and Houston and then U mapping the data through fital uh mapping into the latis structure oops um I
Think yeah and um unfortunately Dr Mahan is not here to to share more insight about the urban community development aspects of the project but basically it’s about mapping social environmental justice in two cities of Amsterdam and Houston and then uh picking four sites which represent four pillars of this
Installation as physical models which are again detectable with uh uh web AR platforms as the starting for point for these fital Trails uh which again um is based on uh uh her uh upcoming monograph on um mapping social social environmental justice in um uh metropolitan cities um again
Um I H I do not have that much information related to the urban community development but related to the to the to the installation um the fital tray starts from four physical models and they are detectable with any uh Smartphones without uh any use of um uh
External let’s say uh applications so um the users engage with the Pavilion um uh through uh their phone but if I want to uh speak more about the design computation fabrication for us uh an important factor was uh um uh assemblability and disassemblability of the project and then uh we were looking
Into the ways we can um optimize our ltis structure using um local materials and in this case we are um U using uh four types of dbls uh locally resource resource and then we are developing a computational uh design workflow to uh rather than uh finalizing the design and
The fin the material for that we are uh uh set our material pallet and then uh optimize our um uh design output uh with this material uh pallet which is um um um provided um locally and resourced locally um and then there is also um a concrete 3D printing component uh to the
To the project um as said uh the figal trails are uh starting from uh these physical models and then working with continuous tool pass uh uh was also another aspect of the project which was also uh explained before so uh this is an overview of the
Installation uh as I said before we have four starting points and then uh here you see also some snapshots of uh the way the users can read the information vially uh on top of the Pavilion and um uh navigate to these uh uh Trails this
Is a kind of a call out of one of the trails again uh it starts from the physical models so the the image of the physical models is detectable with the uh AR uh platforms and then the users will be uh uh uh guide to uh uh
Different uh uh let’s say Dynamic QR codes which again another lay layers of information is mapped uh onto the Pavilion here you see an overview in the palat samura room six again four four starting point for the fysal traits and the latis structure which is um assembled uh
There some snapshots of the way uh the people can interact with the uh Pavilion and then read the information um we have captured the data over the past 6 months uh and this would be also another interesting factors that we would like to analyze and to see uh
How people have been reacting and and interacting with the with the installation and then obviously this has been done uh uh in a very collaborative setup uh including students and external collaboratives and Industry partners and again some other snapshots uh from um the um venue I think I have two
Videos just to give you an idea so this is um I mean there should be also a sound but um people can interact it’s fine no the s of interaction okay and the next one maybe also shows the um assembly process of uh using uh holens um so uh over the course
Of two days uh we are assembling the structure um using a augmented reality um headset so there is one guy here wearing the holens and instructing the others um and uh we need to undo this in the coming two days so they’re going to be a a lot of disassembly
Fun um um so since the connections are dry and so the the whole structure is uh stable in in compression and then when we insert the tension pins in the in the in the joints uh so the structure uh achieves its uh um um rigidity yeah that’s it thank you
Thank you thank you very much Ca um for our um next speaker I would like to introduce uh Hannah D Hannah is a registered architect engineer and product developer uh she established the Biomat Copenhagen Research Center at alberg University in 2022 at the tech technical faculty of it and design at
The Institute of sustainability and planning and she’s also the CEO of Biomat Tu at TTI since 2022 after the great success of her established Biomat department at itke faculty of architecture and urban planning in the stutgart Germany since 2016 and after grounding her architectural office in Cairo since
2003 D holds diverse patents in the field of Sustainable Building Solutions especially biomaterials and recycling applications in the building industry her patents are internationally registered in the EU region Germany the US and Malia she developed the new architectural design philosophy materials as a design tool based on applying alternative resources as a
Starting point in the design process this philosophy intends to reach sustainable future architecture to targeting available local and bio anually Ren renewable resources integrating digital tools like d digital fabrication Technologies and parametric computational tools she designed and fabricated a number of innovative sustainable and smart Building Products earn earning numerous Design Awards and
Won diverse industrial project funds she has designed and constructed numerous architectural landscape projects as well as a diverse range of experimental architectural Pavilions in different regions including Europe the Middle East and North Africa so uh thank you very much Hana I don’t know this work yeah thanks a lot
For the nice introduction and uh thanks for the invitation uh maybe before I start I would like to uh mention a very very precious person to thank my mom who I have unfortunately uh lost at the beginning of this month which um was a coincidence because this month is
Considered the most intensive month to give uh open lectures in this is I think the seventh or eighth exit ly so instead of canceling them all I decided to carry on and um give the speech further because uh she’s um a professor of architecture Technologies her name is
Nadia thit and I carried or inherited the guilt of our built environment and the um the issue of resources which is having a very big link to the topic today and um it’s uh worth mentioning maybe that she worked a lot in the area of uh concrete and she developed in even
In the 80s a um a um prefabrication system that I later saw in Germany in 2011 so she was indeed a Pioneer and I’m so much thankful to be the daughter and continuing this path so if I’m allowed I would really love to talk about resources further just as uh the U the
Very dear colleagues and Friends talked in um the center of exercising what how could we pick up a resource that is obviously underestimated and how to carry this further to another level and see using the technologies that we have how this could be turned into another level in our built
Environment and this was actually the base of creating the concept of materials as a design tool which is having the factors of materials design and Fabrication as major components within the design process and getting into a bottom up approach seeing what type of developments could we do from
One single resource which is one topic here that is going to be um intensively mentioned the biomaterials and especially annually renewable natural fibers coming either from the rest overs of the Agricultural residues or from what we call industrial natural fibers like Flex hemp jute and others and this
Was the background of the creation of the Biomat organizations first at stat at the University and Then followed up by Copenhagen and then the company so as said the exercise basically here is the biom materials and specifically natural fibers because of this dramatic photo that um I always
Like to share because this was mainly a one of the movements that um got me in person like in charge of trying as good as possible but but from an architectural point of view to see how to get the benefit of this type of resource we have here a burnout of
Annually renewable rest overs of the Agricultural stream basically in every region cereals are being grown and then the rest over are unfortunately burnt out in Open Fields by Farmers because they simply want to use the land so this is considered to be a problem in the agricultural sector but a resource for
Us because we have a problem in the resources area in our case this drive me to move in that area and talk to many colleagues who have the expertise of manufacturing and Manufacturing Technologies there in Germany and to see how could be a possibility to turn those single fibers into one unified element
And to exactly tackle how to make the um the geometry how to make it in a one single component and through my PhD studies I developed like at least 20 different um Solutions and one of them what was called later blexi is um in the composition of actually a fiber board
With a very large number of recycled natural fibers up to 90% by weight and they are compounded by a thermoplastic elastomer that could be recycled and that could be even biodegraded under um industrial compost conditions and when we reinforce them up and down like a sandwich panel in specific directions
They could get literally almost any kind of geometry which is of course for us as designers as Architects a very big dream and this um caused then the possibility to see what could go further like the upscaling process first in the most simple way in investigating in the furniture industry and giving this
Further to uh um students and working together understanding how we could change the polymer we add pigments we change casting we change the production method and then we create various solutions that started first interiorly as um applications in inside indoors flooring systems different kinds of setups partitions cading systems of
Several kinds but then moving out later bigger as you will see but also the was a nice chance in our studio to investigate on living materials like melium for instance this is very nice example of how melium has been engineered to move to close the ratan skeleton that was applied here as a
Structural system which obviously had its uh its very nice uh outcome at the end holding the weight up to 100 kilog while its own doesn’t weight even 1 kilogram but then we carried this guil further and we wanted to move along and upscale our Solutions so you see here
Six different um projects that um definitely without the expertise of everyone involved this would not have come to a solution and the one in the middle this is the SCB the sustainable circular Bridge Project that was um or that is going to end very very soon this
Is uh this was directed by the Technical University of einhoven so I would like to um just move um by manufacturing process like Journey for journey to see how things could change by changing the system of fabrication so you see here the first blexi done which
Was a sandwich uh which was a fiberboard um composite as you see but then turned into a sandwich element and applied first in the uh project of the bomat Pavilion of 2018 where a span of 10 Metter has been covered and a height of 3 Metter within the project itself we
Had to develop also a further um bio composits that you will see later but it is the idea of human centered design at the end this was opened up as a kind of competition to our students because this was given in the form of our design studio and they
Had the chance to also grab the material in hand and see how they could actively engage in the fabrication process of turning the real material that was produced at that time into a building component and uh in that case you see here through vacuuming and in our
Studios we started as good as possible to um find enough tricks to have the possibility to uh apply the veneer which has a specific direction of reinforcement two directions of reinforcements in fact on its top in the fiber length Direction and its back it has a re enforcement perpendicular on it
This allowed a free form possibility to take place and definitely since this is a segmented shell construction the um connections played a huge role so we had to investigate on different setups of uh joints and all were tested to pick up the highest uh one with the highest um
Performance and we basically like we were the Jokers playing almost all the roles uh from the production of the uh elements on a small scale up to getting them in position but definitely the uh the integral collaboration with the structural engineers from the Technical University of einhoven and the
Colleagues of geodesy enabled us reaching the the needed level of quality assurance because since this is a unconventional building element that needs a non-conventional construction method then it was needed to have the point Cloud through 3D laser scanning of the terrain and of the location before during and after the uh the construction
To measure out every single component where it should end to reach the level of accuracy that we need to reach so this shows generally the bottom up approach that really took place from the material research up till the fabrication and the design collaboration with the structur engineers this is the
Malleability of the fiber board and those are where the designs created during the design studio to pick up one that is actually none of the above it is like the single component was composed by one of the students but we had to generate our own designs back again to be
Buildable it is worth mentioning that every single detail was uh monitored and uh we had only four forms to produce the 370 pieces of um um elements and then we had to make um like a small uh Fabric in our studio where the components were all um reinforced through the veneer and
Then treated for the weathering resistance and then everything was got in position so the side itself it was on two levels there was a difference of 1.5 M difference and we had to position our three footages superficially and fill it with graval and heavy substance because
We were not allowed to make any anchors to the ground there was an auditorium underneath and you see the level of accuracy uh would have not been reached without the uh gey colleagues and without the other experts if we move along it was um also a journey to uh try to investigate on
Other um uh fabrication systems and this is what we call or what is called tailor fiber placement technique this is a system that is um taken from the uh the um textile industry and we came to know about it for the first time from the dear colleagues of the aircraft design
Where they applied different types of materials like carbon fibers and glass fibers and then we suggested to apply ours and in this case Flex fibers and hemp fibers and what basically took place is that we suggested that we’re going to have a shell construction a freestanding let’s say a um a
Freestanding component for a bus station for instance and then we would assume that there were there is someone who’s going to try to hold it on top and to just try as good as possible to suggest the flow of stresses and then through topology optimization we got the
Unnecessary materials out and in order to stitch it we had to flatten the surface first and to uh make it into different layers and cut it down into the size that is equivalent to the size of the head of the machine so basically we had those
Preforms and we had to have a uh form workk which we built up from uh Balsa uh wood that we were able to reuse again so we bent the surface of the mold and we applied it on a waffle structure this is the outline just for
Imagination of how this took place so we basically used two types of uh physical forms of the Flex fibers uh in the form of tapes the ones that you see here and in the form of Yarns and equally also a kind of competition was opened and there
Was a very good collaboration with the Technical University of the Czech Republic where the structure Engineers from there plus the um the other colleagues from aircraft design here you see as the process of a selection of the design took place and here is the stitching as the Tailoring process took
Place those are the bombings that we had to prepare and take in advance and then fix on the head of the machines it’s an additive manufacturing technology like most of the technologies that were shown and will be shown further in the presentation just as talk today we
Deposit the material where it is really needed so here the process it depends a lot on the type even of stitching if it’s uh zigzag or if it is parallel and then then this is a dry process that a we take the stitched pieces on the stretched membrane and then we fix them
On the mold and then place at at the very last stage another type of uh tape fibers were applied here is the the pro process of sub massage for our fibers where it is uh having the resin in it and as you see it is very very much similar to the boat
Industry and aircraft industry where the mold um is being applied and then it’s closed after the resin infusion takes place and then yeah voila it’s very thin uh component and it’s just uh couple of CM maybe one or one and a half CM thick or maybe two but it’s another setup of
Filigran lightweight structures that um also have another visual Aesthetics and U we we really indeed learned a lot through it it was only 35 kilog on a further basis we kept trying different setups of trying minimal surfaces like this gyroid and this uh composition of modular systems and how
To cover up the uh connections between these systems that are composed of the flax or hemp fibers and the different setups of resins and how to cover up having different uh geometrical constellations whenever we rotate the the unit and this was leading to another development that happened um on the
Industrial scale with one of the companies in Germany who actually produced uh the Airbus in the corona time they wanted to open up another field of uh um like a business line for architecture and um they came to us and we created this nice development together and this had an innovation
Price in Paris last year a further setup has to do with protrusion as a technique in in this system a another development of a shell construction a um double curved one was applied and in a um in a sense that might be a bit similar to Bamboo in the
Sense of creating these setups of um uh uh structures of course bamboo is a total different system that that is Timber on it it own that is a wood system and it needs a lot of energy to be able to bend in our case we have the
We had the possibility to apply the bending um as it uh it is uh taking place so it was the first production or the first um confirmation of the hypothesis that we could indeed Bend this ped what is called the PED is a fibers um or profiles they are profiles
That are um the fibers are in specific linear directions and it was possible to bend on both sides and the stored energy was applied structurally here is the the process the the hero one of the heroes behind it is Al sitting in the in the room at the
Dear Jenny so she is the uh PhD candidate responsible of this project and you see here the process of the Pion taking place where the fibers are aligned inside specific holes of this uh this um uh tool and here you see the process of investigating on how the
Curvature uh would be reaching and accordingly the 3D model was created it was several studies and there were colleagues also the structural engineers from the in our Institute from the itke at that time and um it was possible to to see how uh could we in this case
Create the gerder on the three girders um on the three sides of the Pavilion that covers the span of 10 m and the height up to 4.5 M here you see the process of Investigation how what would be the bending radius and the lashing technique that was originally definitely
Known from the Asian uh architecture here we replaced it with specific uh setup of Steel threads and then you see the detailing that was on the three gers each girle was composed of two uh profiles and in this case the footage was a very large footage on one level as
You see here in the middle uh from Timber and everything as well was superficial here is within the process just directly um before removing the single um columns until it gets into the status of equilibrium and then afterwards it was uh the uh the membrane was uh applied so again this is another
Example that is lying in the area of the foto godfa of us and uh this was another tradition of gathering different setups of Technologies and also the the um the specific um uh type of of structure and its lightness was um the reflection behind it again another additive manufacturing
Which is very much linked to what we have here in house in patura the um 3D printing um of specific types of newly developed filaments that are composed of um um the the rest over from uh the wood industry and uh filaments also from uh bio Plastics there was a very big team
Behind that and as usual uh we always um start small and then we move large so we developed a lot of uh Solutions Also regarding connections and it is worth mentioning that also the very nice collaboration with a very dear um luchu and the El colleagues was behind this
Very nice um uh column that uh was again a segmented one and it is present here in the first floor in palatum MOA you can you are actually very much welcome welome to have a look later um the the um exhibition itself was proposing or was showcasing three
Different projects at least and um it you can see it live so I would not um take extra time to talk about it in details but please uh find the way and have a look just like a couple of meters um also it’s it’s worth mentioning that we as good as possible
Try to Ed different types of resin systems here there’s kittin and kitosan behind and those are produced from the uh shell of uh shells of insects and Marine creatures like shrimps for instance we were invited by the colleagues of the chemistry faculty and uh we had an input to that and tried as
Good as possible to investigate within a fluid deposition um procedure to reinforce also with cellulose fibers and to have them uh printed and as well in the area of additive uh adaptive and smartness we had as well an input there where the um possibility of integration of elastic
Zones were there to create a kind of kinematic and adaptive system as well as this rotatory uh facade that you see all of those in which the um tailoring fiber placement has been as well investigated um in addition the robotic assembly was also one of the topics that
We try to integrate in our work and to implement it it has to have uh an input uh definitely from the initial design phase one of the uh nice projects that we are currently working on has to do with vertical fings with the colleague of Aken H we were invited to include a
Vertical farming system that is called um orb Loop to investigate how to integrate this this specific type of um um integral vertical farming system so just to imagine this this is a garden that is very Compact and the garden is actually plants that are uh compacted in
A revolving uh tape or band and it is so compact to the possibility that this could be integrated in facade systems so we developed with the colleagues of the frover Eva um the the understanding of how the system works enabled us as Architects to have a kind of catalog
Settlement of how to implement and integrate this system with already existing um uh existing buildings and as well to new buildings so the outcome was uh basically having to do with identifying the location and uh seeing the requirements and Architectural conception as well as the performance
Simulation in order to come out with the end with the criteria of selection of how this system could be integrated in um in in buildings on different setups this is the location currently in Aken this is how the uh the the um uh Plantation is taking place uh we are uh
Planting uh salads and uh different type of fruits uh specifically strawberries at the moment and this is just to um have an imagination of how this is being integrated in buildings also um the final and biggest project has to do with Bridges um the one um that you see here um this the
Deck of the bridge that is not concrete because people sometimes get mistaken because it has this color that seems to be concrete which is not the case it is um according to the requirements have been given that color but originally it had the same color of natural fibers so
The this is this is the um um the reflection of the project called sustainable circular Bridges uh that is an interre EU project that is directed from the Technical University of einhoven and we are basically five companies five universities seven companies and three cities in that
Project um the first um um Bridge was already built last year at the day of Earth in um uh almea in Netherlands it had a span of 15 M and the width of 3 m and the codesign definitely took place with the colleagues of fiber who fabricated the uh Bist trade and
Definitely with the structured Engineers of the Technical University of einhoven here you see as the process of making is taking place and um you see here on the bottom left uh how the core itself was made of foam and all around the core of the body of the bridge uh Flex fibers
Have been applied this is in the fiber core um inam this is the company who is responsible of making the bridge body the coming one is supposed to come um yeah actually this is the photo of the partners on the bridge and this is a permanent one for cyclists and
Pedestrians and the uh the coming one is in olm and near the very well known Cathedral um and the designs have been uh long ago already finished um and it has a philosophical input about the location itself the very specific location and how the the old meets the
New u meaning the technology and also the location where this exists and also it’s important to mention that it makes a big difference as an architect to know in advance how this is going to be put together and also the fabrication system behind it so this is the the outcome so far for
The uh the design we hope to have an opening time soon so to sum up um there is there are so many um developments that were done with our teams and with our partners I hope it comes yes so the idea is that we’re trying as good as possible to cover the
Gaps to close the gaps of what we can do already today with the Technologies we have have we’re trying as good as possible to find out the components even at the conventional architectural um setup that we see here I mean it was intentionally that I tried to make the
Graphs on the kind of architecture we already know today and to try to see how many elements we could possibly replace so uh state of art today yes we can we can claim that we have the possibility to cover already many components that we are having from different materials from different
Fabrication Techni techniques in our uh in our uh work already today and um um of course those numbers have been mentioned a couple of times but we can have a different variation um that um you can see I mean if we’re talking about um uh renewable resources of every
Kind also harvesting energy on the city level how this um would mean for a complete City and how this could change our um future architecture by this I come to the end of the presentation and like to thank you a lot and also like to thank the bed people
Here also Vanessa um for their great inputs those are the heroes of wet thank [Applause] you thank you very much Hana that very very fantastic uh presentations um and and I think it has been a very very exciting set of different uh takes and projects and
Different ways that I um I think it really showed that uh the forces that are kind of shaping architecture and our industry are very external to the discipline right so there is materials and um material engineering the ex the AR VR that at Zena was showing on a the
Concrete sand different ways of making the robotic fabrication uh 3D printing so all of these kind of different technological advances that are but are also like ecological like on terms of a lot of the materials and the growth that that Anna was showing and um kind of a
Lot of these pressures are kind of are really changing I think how we what is our agency as Architects and how do we have agency and how do we adapt to this um in ways that maybe we’re not expected but I think that also allow us to expand
The reach of our practice and to redefine how our profession engages with the world and I think that there are very very interesting samples are being sh here today so I would like to see um I would like to uh ask all of you on on
The panel like um how do you think that Architects can design when with the architectural profession as always uh we we have like short-term goals that we need to achieve in a very kind of immediate future while kind of addressing a lot of the hyper objects a
Lot of the things that you were mentioning like climate change like uh like the pollution like all of these that kind of really operate in a longer term scale the than the scale that we normally operate so so how do you see within all of these new innovations that
That you are working on that we can Bridge or we can we can oper we can uh allow these the practice to adapt to to this uh Vision or to to to enable this Vision I think when adaria was talking about to making a three years what
Happens in 100 years right so so so so what what is your um how do you see these in each of your different contexts okay I may I may start I think the challenge we have to face is the fact that is not kind of um slow Evolution
Process because we just don’t have the time and so I was mentioning the the concept of disruptive and I think this is what we need in architecture and I believe every of us in different ways we engage Technologies in different ways um but we see the chance to have a quick
Transformation of the way we are practicing and it’s about designing in terms of at material Level I mean Anna was was telling about that it’s about um engaging uh Manufacturing Technologies about engaging uh structural design and I believe the target I mean it is for me
But I believe it’s it’s for all of us is to say it’s not about getting 5% better it’s about getting getting 40 50 60% better I think if we keep this in mind uh then we really manage to have this transformation on one side but of course
To engage the opportunities I mean all crisis have opportunities which are embedded and that means we can by engaging our creative capacity I mean Aral you were uh talking about creativity at the end and I really believe this is part of it so we have to
Be much more creative to change the way we are shaping our build environment and we see at the moment really an open field to do that uh just because it it is urgently required so in the projects that we did so far the best that work uh worked
Actually is the team so the multidisciplinary that goes Way Beyond the boundaries of classical architectural education so that what I have based on my experience and what we see now as a climate crisis it’s a lot about material culture so a lot about reality also a lot about the material
Performance and a lot about the um ecological footprint of the structures that we build for that usually Architects this is where the kind of border of the discipline comes but then of course the interaction with the material scientists Structural Engineers and mechanical engineers come into play
And uh what I what we were showing here for example for the Coral Tree that um we look into the material side but for this we need a consultancy of the material scientists and the chemists or we look into the production that is very tightly uh a collaboration with the
Mechanical engineers who are educated for building a real machines that are functioning but and or in the structural engineers who understand how the system works and we as Architects we are very good actually at seeing the global level so seeing the longer perspective and also seeing the overview and assembling
The teams and and going together with everyone to the common goal so this is what I see as a crucial for making a really substantial change in the construction industry in terms of ecological performance of our structures I think we saw a lot of uh amazing presentations and uh ideas how
To go into into the future and now the the difficult thing is how to to bring all this together and uh so when when we re reflect so then we we we can imagine that the industrialization um brought us not just uh the different dis disciplines of
Architects and Engineers but also of the separation of the whole processes so today we have so many different participants in the in design and planning so a lot of uh Specialists for uh this and that and the same in the manufacturing side so uh for me is the most important thing besides creativity
That we get to unified again um design and Manufacturing as as one process and um also the the disciplines of our profession uh we have to to bring together again so let’s say the architect um of the future in my person is a team so we Architects Engineers
They form a team a design team and also the the responsibility what also you you were presenting adcr for manufacturing you know so we have to to claim back uh the guidance of the manufacturing and uh not just do nice uh ideas by by drawings and renderings and give them to the
Factory and then we are wondering what what we get on site so this is uh this is for me very substantial and this is nice to see that by going deep into the knowledge of Technology how things are done how material is informed how material gets brought into
Shape if we understand this we are able to guide manufacturing yeah um yeah I think uh um it is also depend on how we uh broadcast and like inform the the society like yes yesterday we had this panel about immigration and then how um politicians are uh ill informed about how for
Instance immigration is good for the society so like while immigration can bring um positive impact to the society’s uh right Wings is like saying no we don’t need immigrants so like the and then if you scale this in into the context of uh building industry so developers tends to like work with con
Conventional ways of manufacturing and construction so like therefore uh prototyping in different scales and informing the industry that things are possible is I think would also result into a larger impact for instance in the context of um Texas where uh I have moved recently so we have this company
Called icon and like they’re printing larger scale neighborhoods and like since there is excitement that like things can happen in larger scale there also like more motivations and more let’s say interests to invest on this because that people see that this is possible of course like when it gets to
That that scale there might be some um reductions or like um um a loss of quality but U Since U they’re going to see this prototype in a largest scale the society can can embrace it in in multiple levels so uh I think that um maybe as a
Start it has to be somehow we need to come up with a radical change in the pedagogy of architecture and to try as good as possible to come on Earth and avoid having or treating or telling the the architecture the students that they everyone need to feel as if they are the
Picasso of the built environment and that I have a single idea and I have a must I’m the architect I must apply it I think we need to to respect other disciplines and other types of uh industries that have gone into so much of development than us and so we need to
Learn from one another and we need to see how to make things more efficient and to avoid the idea of this solo uh uh decision and to to work with one another with other disciplines I think through all the presentations it was clear enough that we um surrender and we have
To um know what is going on in other Technologies and disciplines and we use them properly in our discipline because we need it that’s one and on the other hand we have to take um care of the um the the the legislation of the site because whatever we are doing here in
This very nice room uh if it doesn’t reach to the politicians and if it doesn’t go through the proper legal displ in a quick modus we can just talk forever so we really need to cover the paths the the young people to know different stuff and the end of the story
To have the the impulse in the market in its proper way it should be yeah thank you thank you very much to all I don’t know if there’s anything else anyone wants to add what um I think like along um all of the presentation of course and on my own practice and work
We know that we are engaging with a lot of um like I I like the idea of this architect like more like on the past a more holistic concept right which is not a single person but is like a group a group of people right that that have all
The different expertises and definitely that’s something that I think will definitely change the the the way we we approach buildings how do you see like um that we can engage with all of the different tools like I mean like there is a lot every one of us are like using
Like imulation Tools digital tools robotics all of this how can we engage with those tools in a as a as a kind of um to approach a change on the on the environment on actually the built environment and I think that that what what that last step of like yeah we know
How to do it we can do the simulations we can I think there was the presentation of like uh AI can do whatever but then how do we manufacture it right and but also how we can simulate a lot of things and how do we engage that with a through through the
Material understanding to really make a change on the build environment how do you think we can make that last step and and um uh between the tools all of the tools that we have and really make make a change um that that can be significative as a in in in the way we
Conceive these designs is there something that um you think we can um the tools can work on that way yeah when you were placing this uh I was actually thinking about about the links in a brain yeah just as a as a metaphor and if you think about the way we do
Work or we’ve been working in the past it is first it is sequential secondly it is fragmented as AR was mentioning and um actually all of us engage in digital technology in design in manufacturing and I would add later on in this assem L because this is the missing part we all
Keeping in mind and it should be part of the practice as well uh it cannot be sequential anymore I mean the more we think about our architectural practice the more we have to think first of all in circles and second all in a much denser Network that means that uh the
Exchange of information between all the different partners from design to fabrication has to be iterative is to be much more cross-link and only by doing that we can get to a totally different level of quality which is uh helping us hitting the targets so uh let’s keep our
Brain with a speed of exchange of information as a kind of um Vision how the practice should should transform and uh we can build a kind of U experimental platform form in the way we do work but with the same speed the brain is exchanging information we should make
Sure that all what we do in experimental way is really quickly coming to the practice and showing that things can get quicker can get more prep precise can have higher quality level can have a different and much more modern aesthetic and can be much more sustainable I think that should be the target
It doesn’t have to be sequential like that go ahead but like yeah we again continue on um I like very much the idea that actually we don’t only use the tools but we create the tools I really adore it as architect and I think that we should approach it from
The that backwards from the goal so first we formulate what do we really need and this is what we always had in our projects so when you first formulate the goal then you see how far it goes beyond your discipline and how many people do you need to get on board to
Have a team and and where the possible tool that you need to create to solve the problem can lie and then which specialist you need for that to team up to create it so let’s say when we created our machine we did it from scratch at the campus fan at the
University of stutgart and we knew what we want to have so we didn’t want to have any commercial tool that we would need to kind of try to adapt for our needs but we knew that we could be able to build it for our own and have it completely transparent have it linked
With the digital design and the fabrication and have complete control on the processes that are going and I like very much how in the process of development the further possibilities that this tool can do are unfolding in front of your eyes because you’re fully engaged in the creation process so I see
This as a very powerful also you know like designed by making or designed by doing your kind of processing and you you even updating your tool in the process of its development that gives you also further insights in in in the design and construction yeah I think when we’re
Talking if we’re talking about tools and about of the the sustainability aspect um it it makes a um yeah every individual building is a different case so the the tool setup is um um pretty much different depending on the type of project and depending on the type of
Outcome and what you really want to get at the end the the idea I think is having to do with yeah what kind of uh is is this really mandatory for everyone to gather the necessary information till you get to the end of story knowing that
You didn’t cause a a big burden on the environment within this tool process that is the case and again maybe I don’t want to repeat myself but if there is a legislation that as an architect as a team you must do it then the case will
Differ it will not be um just up to everyone making their own tool or way of reaching to the built environment rather that there will be something that they have to to include yeah maybe another aspect is uh how we can educate Architects to be entrepreneurial uh
Um entrepreneur and then uh create jobs and like because this is something that maybe we don’t um usually typically do in architectural education but like we see a lot of examples at least uh from my former students or like um uh other institutions that like there are spin-off companies which are like trying
To like bring these Technologies into the context of Industry so I think there with them we can expect a kind of a paradigm shift uh um and uh back to your question and what would be the next biggest step I think is the way these uh I would say bottomup changes can can
Change the land landscape of Industry I think that um no yeah that that’s totally true but I mean when you when you seear talking about that next step and I think on the previous when Hannah was talking about the legislation and I think uh what what do you what is
The general perception I mean and I think for me it has been a very exciting moment since the start working with digital fabrication like maybe 13 years some time ago but like kind of some time ago and see how it went to like from very academic to
Really kind of start to see buildings being made with these Technologies I think is is has been incredibly exciting I mean to see like in 12 13 years right like from Academia now there are real buildings out there but um there is that step right into like okay we have all of
These now when we go to to make them and we have had that problem myself a lot into now we have to get certified and now we we have to go through all of this step to actually be competitive let’s say with products that that we know are maybe more inefficient or less
Sustainable but that have been there for like ever like that that result in uh the the buildings that haven’t changed in a 100 years uh do do you have any idea of of how what what how what can we do or how or how is your own experience
For example with the slab with the the the the empty slab and this into into going through that process of now getting this approved by engineer that this that this for for a building that is going to be for public use let’s say be Beyond just like the prototypes or Pilon or experimental
Areas yeah it’s a good question um thinking more and more that also we have to with all this certification and regulations they are too too General so our regulations working now for European Union with u country specific uh issues of course but uh as more as more you you like to
Increase the scale of the regulations as more inefficient or the uh the outcome is and uh so I could imagine to to go much more in the direction that you not just regulate materials and uh processes but maybe really manufacturing steps maybe also design so uh we could come
More uh in in directions that um for example 3D printing is if you use those technology you have to prepare the material in that way and then if your structures or constructions outcome is in this way for example slaps so you re you really regulated the whole process
From design to fabrication for concrete slabs with ribs what we are doing with this print on top you know and uh this is a clear not to start again each project you start again to calculate slabs you know and uh it’s it’s stupid it’s not fun it’s uh really stupid and
So this you could do in a much more holistic process and uh this is inspiring then uh start to to and and then maybe this is also a chance for new um startups which take manufacturing design also this for example to to to to do slabs rip ripped concrete slabs not
Just to use one technology or to do uh generative design here and so this could be a new market so Focus really on on products in in but maybe also then in the bigger scale houses I don’t know yeah but important that as more you automate
This is important for us but the outcome has to be really the potential for being customized to to address to the location and uh but this is possible yeah maybe I can add to this um I think less than a week ago I I gave a speech in in tum in the Technical
University of Munich and I was asked directly when people heard the talk about alternative materials structur Engineers asked okay but how can we design with it structurally we are only taught to to design with concrete and steel and I think one of the first steps in order talking about cooperation and
Creation that also other related disciplines pretty much the structure engineering as well as definitely architecture that the the education would have to include those Technologies as a in the in the basic studies like also Engineers structur Engineers I mean need to also have a bit of idea of composits of lightweight structures in
Different ways and how to get through um maybe the basic understanding of how to calculate those structures so that at the end if someone came up with the idea okay we need to um now do it alternatively it it would not be struck out from the beginning before it really
Starts and there will be enough disciplines because this has been much of a challenge to find also other colleagues from other disciplines who can work with these types of structure systems I mean education is one of the the playing roles in it plus of course
The end of the story that was repeated a couple of times yeah I I fully agree U and and still we do to need to move um the education in the engineering faculty we have the the traditional historical uh privilege edge of being teaching in both faculties and we do see how the
Engineering academic studies are still way too analytical and this is what it leads and way too uh subdivided in a in a very classical way into materials and into processes uh and they are not enough communicating to each other so the one point is uh to break that
Because it’s just not more or what we need the second thing is to to educate engineering students not only to do analysis but to do synthesis and I do believe that this is not only something that has to be done in kind of design process in the architectural faculty
There there is a long tradition for this um but also we need a new generation of Engineers which are more able to engage their creativity and they do do to my uh to my understanding too much mathematics at the beginning and they just kill their willing of exploring new spaces
And New Dimensions so this is one uh one part of it and um the second part of it once we educate uh designers and I from now on I don’t want to want I don’t want to distinguish between Architects and Engineers uh once we educate designers
It is about having a political frame a a regulation frame where we do support creativity that means if you know how to solve a problem I mean this is kind of complimentary to what Aral was saying the One Direction is to have systems which are uh where we know they are
Working and the other thing is where we are not working in a system field we have to uh allow people that know how to solve issues how to find solutions to make that we need uh much more space for experimental building within the regulation and there is a big discussion
In Germany Germany is over regulated to my um for my feeling but it’s not the only one and uh if we want to have a quicker transfer we need to release a lot of the energies that are in in all of us in all of the system by relying much more into
Responsibility and this is the second part of that so we can engage creativity if we are allowed to be responsible for what we design no matter what is the field we are coming from and coming coming back to the comment from Harold concerning also the regulations and the allowances so how to
Move from the pure Academia to practice so I think we exper experience this two ways one is the shortterm goal based on the existing legislative requirements you already could still design the new processes and structures that still will fit into the existing codes so that I think for example for lightweight
Concrete construction it is possible to create for example ripped slabs that are still be calculable and will be approved to be built that’s the short-term perspective and then of course when we talk about the new materials we had this with one of the um early experiment and graded Concrete where we sprayed
Different mixtures within one component so that’s clearly 50 years perspective because just basically construction industry is to iner if is is too far in for the further approval but then already now if we start with the short-term Solutions let’s say the uh single concrete type with reinforcement
Is being approved but still we already show this as a demonstrator for the future perspective this could possibly already accelerate the further processes of acceptance let’s say this is what is now happening with with the fiber reinforcements they really already more than 10 years are trying to get into the
Approval as alternative reinforcement material compared to the reinforcing still but if there would be no efforts of companies who are pushing into this direction or the clear need that it could give us Slender cross-sections less material um and and further improvements including carbonation that would be probably even not happen at all
But we already know that with the fiber reinforcement it will happen very soon so the new codes will be uh coming into real life so I think that’s very important to keep this short-term long-term perspective for development that’s a very exciting to hear that things are coming and
Legislation is changing um so we open for the questions if anyone on the audience has any questions uh for anyone on the panel hello okay thank you so much for the nice presentation ations um I’m going to change the topic a little bit um I have a question that um it relates
To context and more specifically cultural context um we have seen in Harold’s presentation the Paradox about building more with less resources but we also know that a lot of this construction is going to happen in the global South and so much of the technology that we’re showing here today is only accessible in
The global North so I I wanted to hear maybe also Alicia because you had a little bit of this experience of applying these new technologies in a different context um yeah I wanted to know your opinion and your experience and how to not alienate the the people that you are
Applying this um new technologies to and not to make it a a top down so the same way that we looked at materials bottom up how can we also implement this in different context bottom up and then have the real digital vernacular that we so much talk
About thanks this is a really um important question and um we saw I think son in your presentation the Boston Dynamics robot doing some screwing and so on so this is of course an extreme uh Direction so that we uh have all this Androids doing uh manual work
In the future so we are really also have this experience now that you have really uh observe the whole processes and in some steps it’s much better to use human labor instead of program robot for example if we have these rip rips which we print and then we need
To on a defined uh layer to insert three rebars so now you could imagine 5 m long 12 mm rebar program two robots putting this and uh pick and place this on top makes no sense so two people take this it’s a thing on two minutes and it’s over it’s done
So with augmented reality you get exactly the information where you put this rebars and so this is a human machine called collaboration and then is also it depending on uh what is the most coost Co cost expensive part is it the human labor is it the material this this
Can vary from country to Country even if of course from the e ecological point of view to save material is the best but sometimes if it is too too expensive it will not uh get uh introduced into into the industry so you have in countries where where you have more human labor
For for uh lower price it makes sense to adapt the processes so this is what is important not just go now everything has to be digitize so we have to re really select uh the processes each step by step and decide from location to location also regionally could be uh different
Could be interesting so the same kind of process but let’s say one or two steps are here done manually this is possible we have this experience where we are working on this Yeah is it working I guess yeah okay so just to add on this because um taking for consideration that uh when it is digital that means it has to do with uh the the first part of the hemisphere and not not has having something to do with
The south I mean coming myself like half of me from the south South um it was intentionally that all the developments that we did and all the fabrication systems that we have applied they are available on an international and Global level so if if we’re talking here that
Uh since this is digital then that it might seem to be uh belonging to a certain region or culture um I think it is the time since also in the communication um um tools it was very clear that this did not have almost a limit to whatever I mean we see mobile
Phones everywhere we see those level of digitalization in communication so similar the digitalization in the building sector could come in whatever region it is depending on the original uh type of fabrication that could be globally found and at least I mean for the developments that is shown from our
Side so far in the presentation This was um with conscious from the beginning uh selected to be applied in any region whatever it is wherever it is in terms of like for us and very aligned with that Harold was saying like I think that we are maybe now like after
A lot of time like in the position where we have better understanding at least for from Architects right into the all the the digital fabrication systems and the robotics to like kind of start to adapt them to be uh more usable for for everyone right and I think that for us
When we started the I mean the project of um the circular Factory one of the ideas was how can we capture a lot of these functions or most of the functions that will normally be done by a by a large range of machines on a single machine that of course will
Be more flexible we have but also has a cost right there is a cost on doing this like in terms of efficiencies it’s not as efficient and and it has a lot of problems but the idea is to to make the to make it as amicable and as easy to
Use as possible and also to reduce the cost and I think that it’s something that because we have the technology now like even in our phon right you have like super high resolution scanners that it only happens in the last two or three years that that you can start to get
This technology it wasn’t like that even five years ago so in terms of materials like in a lot of local materials uh for example they are not with even the the the the raw material it’s not the same Precision than if you get material like from Canada or Germany it’s very
Different the material maybe it’s not precise but now we can scan it so now we can like actually adapt that into a we process so that local materials could be used even if they are a bit more imperfect than than in other places so I
Think that that really is is H is a is a very exciting point when we talk about how can we adapt these Technologies to to to to the South or or to to to other places I think and and me I mean also coming from a Latin American country
Like there is so much craft but and and we can lip frog a lot of the regulatory environments that really constrain um like like like the north right so I think that there is where really there is a big opportunity if we make the Technologies adaptable and and easy to
Use and also engage with the local craft and with the local materials to really lip frog what is happening right now and I think that is for me that is very exciting possibility so I don’t think we should see it as a divide because it’s really we we do have the tools available
Now to to to bridge it and and to go very far so I mean I at least that’s has been our experience and and it has been scary and and a lot of things have been very stressful years but I think that that is exciting to see to see how
People get excited by the technology we have visitors we have tons of people asking us to come to use the machines to learn like like the excitement is is really really amazing and it’s really fulfilling to see it and and to provide a different opportunity and I think that
Like a few years ago when we were talking about robotic fabrication we couldn’t talk about it being actually able to produce a different opportunity for people that maybe otherwise will be immigrating or will be do other real ities right now we see them at our door
And it’s like wow I mean this is really what what we want to do so I think that it is really is more the moment that has come together with uh how we have engaged the simulation tools the fabrication tools and the technology and the technological advances that have
Really progressed with and and it’s just engaging with our fabrication constraints so uh yeah I think it’s a very exciting moment in that end that should not be separated or divided by by kind of ideology yeah maybe I can also add like I don’t think like um Technologies are um um for
Specific Nations especially in today’s world even like back uh 2,000 years ago like materials were traveling from one part of the world to to build the structure in some other part of the world right so and then this this has changed and then new forms of Technologies are uh traveling uh so you
Can also claim that like it’s not top down necessarily like it’s u a part of like uh the whole achievement of humanity so like it’s more accessible now and then with the open source culture this this this is even more accessible um um and I think um yeah
Customizing the the workflows to to different context is I think a very important uh task of us now uh really tailor mating uh specific specific workflow for a specific context according to the available technological and human resource uh uh um uh human resources that we have like it was also
In the presentation of Harold like lack of skilled workers right so like the skill sets of um uh people in different regions are different and then how we can customize our um computational or um robotic production robotic fabrication workflows to data skill set said is I think uh as part of the
Future other questions thank you very much for giving us um I would say a picture of the present of your researches um which somehow represent the future for um a lot of us uh just because um we as uh people uh who who don’t work in the specific fields we
Relate uh this technology to the more standard ones uh of construction so uh I’m curious to know uh what is future in your idea um how far do you imagine this uh digital technology uh can go and um how far would you like them to go so somehow
If you have any dream cases about your research is knowing that of course um it also depends on the on the process and on the uh researches that uh the results that your researches can can do uh can give but yes if you have any dream cases
That uh you would like to tell us all right I can start with my dreams um so as architect as I mentioned before I really had a lot of fun with engaging with materials and seeing how a lot of the processes in Real Environment actually happen in front of your eyes
You could just like guide them and try to understand them better um what we achieved so far with our concrete research I would like in the future more merge with the material research so let’s say to get not only engineered structures with the materials that are
Present now on the market but more go with the engineered materials s because I think that we could go uh further with that so that’s one of my dreams so my my uh future idea is that we uh can reach This Global impact by more Regional uh
Strengthening so that means uh we are all used to globalization to produce somewhere our products and transport them here and there and we start more more and more to introduce change uh locally regionally for example with this robotic ramed Earth which I didn’t uh um show in detail this is depending on Earth
Material and so how our industry is organized uh in Germany and I think also here in other countries so of course there is you can get standardized regulated material which you in some region of Germany which is produced and you can buy this and then you ship this hundreds
Of kilometers through the country on this side and that side uh so if you have a material like Earth material which has no no CO2 footprint then it gets an CO2 footprint by Transportation so why not use the material which is there locally and to to use this material you have to
Start with the implementation there so you have to qualify the material you have to find new new ways how to get processes of of qualifying which you can use everywhere but maybe the let’s say the the the specific um regulation is original because this material here is maybe a
Little bit better the clay here and so the compressive strength is if you take the clay exactly from this region but you can you can Define this so this is the outcome if you locally use this material you compone it in this this way and then you use the robotic process
This is the same everywhere but the material is locally so this is my wish uh for example to to deal to really and then this strengthens also the the people working with the material so the local industry gets inspired you know and also uh you can go in a next scale to to
For example to to look to structures or houses out of Earth material and uh so we had in the past this what is it in English bowood and build construction Huts I don’t know so this was uh teams of of of not just uh building Masters but also uh of all the
Manufacturers and they went from location to location because they had the knowledge you know and I mean this is maybe not the future again but uh to strengthen really Regional um composition of what kind what is the typical locally IM materiality what construction companies they should learn
To deal with this material and the digital uh process digital tools they could be all over the the same you know maybe I would like to also Echo with this idea of distributed system maybe Fab Labs uh we’re promising this uh let’s say um change in U production
But like the impact of fabl Fab is very much very much about like industrial design and product design I think the scale of architecture um if we could have a distributed system that could act locally like the way our colleagues were saying I think this would be a u an
Impactful let’s say change and I think in in in architecture building building industry if you want to have an impact we need to either like look into like large problems or large scale buildings like for instance um was in the first presentation by Bruno and Daria where
They were looking kind a large scale uh public buildings so the way we may address digital fabrication is my in my opinion is fundamentally different the way we can address digital Fabrication in the scale of a house because in the house we have small problem but in large quantities right it’s fundamentally
Different and in in in that case I think having distributed systems could like which Can U act locally would be definitely an interesting in U let’s say investment but like back to your question personally I think yeah I I think we can also imagine that each of
Us could have some sort of a robotic building pet if you want want to call it that way that can like um um operate and build in um small scale especially like think think of small problems but in large quantities because like housing is the problem of everyone but like public
Buildings is different I think for that we may need other modalities of construction so I would uh then continue on that my dream is about accelerating the transformation it is about uh talking about years and maximum about decades but not uh saying in 100 years
What we are building now or what we are renovating now is more or less the same what it was done 100 years ago or even worse than that I mean that would be really uh the worst thing that could happen to us but the point is in making
This transformation visible uh it is more about the process and not that much about the result the architectural result of it so it’s not about creating a new architectural digital style uh but it’s more uh creating a digital frame to engage different culture different context are we’re talking about
Uh existing Urban context are we talking about new areas I mean the frame is totally different working with with different materials um but the point is do it quickly and um and get that kind of trust in the future I mean you’ve been mentioning the the word future a
Couple of times which you think it’s good uh I do like to talk about future proof architecture so an architecture which is standing and uh which is aware about about is footprint which is uh looking forward and not uh getting scared about what the future can can
Bring we do have the energies to to face and to approach that we have to engage them let me add a short note um to this um it’s all about processes so I showed this 20 years ago this experiences on the free form architect architectural projects and uh
So in that time this was everything was that new that we could uh not just uh create new designs but also to to um do the the the three-dimensional planning with software like ktia so that and this was based on really individual ideas of of Architects so what what what are the
Borderings what are the limits of what kind of design we could get into realization and uh now we are really looking to to like I said to processes so we have to set up processes uh which work in that way that the outcome still will be individualized
And that we have our creativity at the end like we want to have but we have to find new ways how the process steps are really controlled in a let’s say in an efficient way reflecting all the other issues of um economy ecology and also social issues yeah
D as a final input to to this exact point um exactly the the economic I mean personal uh hope that the economic side of those uh application possibilities would be quickly very quickly reached to to reach the market in the most uh comprehensive way because at the end of
The day any consumer or any user whenever they see something that is nice to have but then uh if if this is not meeting the expected uh prices at least with in comparison with the existing Solutions then then here is also another aspect or side of the story plus
Definitely the legislation again because in the the global South which is pretty much linked to the previous question if if even this is reached to the correct price but um then there there is like no rule allowing to apply this type of application in that local region then
There is a problem like for instance clay clay is not allowed to build with anymore in Egypt for instance for for specific Regional um no no not anymore because of the richness of Earth because there is a problem in agriculture so one is linked to the other yes and and in
Every region what is here suitable is not suitable in the other region but also price-wise but at the end of the day they keep using concrete like here in in Europe like everywhere so I mean at the end even if we are promoting a a solution which is pretty much payable
But in certain locations that’s not suitable while in other even pretty much the same locations other types of totally un um unhealthy even ways of production of concrete which is the case again in Egypt that it causes a lot of um veryify dust which has a problem then
Causing many uh lung diseases so it’s one is really against the other so it’s there are so many things that we really hope to change I think we have time for like uh one last question a quick one before um yeah well maybe it’s more um a comment
Than a question being one of the the pioneers of the digital architecture in the ’90s as I worked with haral um we did have the ambition to create a new form as well that new possibilities in production will generate new different forms for different problems as well and
What I do see in the last B anal for the last 10 years is that there’s a lack of interest in in form and I see to my students as well and I still have the ambition that all these technologies will come up with a different kind of architectural uh
Form I think that’s a very a beautiful comment actually we need to engage back to form and design and um yeah so thank you very much for everyone in the panel today was was very very uh F like inspiring I I really feel very good after this panel and thank you very much
For everyone I think we are going to uh wrap it up now yeah thank you so much Alicia thank you so much for sharing with us uh your reserve your work and not only through the conversation today but also through the exhibition and the project that you have in the in the
Gardens and in palat Mor for instance we we heard a lot about uh education about like changing the mindset and showing the alternative construction methods to a broader audience so we hope that also through the work that we do and uh presenting it through a broader audience
We can see it more and more over the years and then become become more like normal let’s say to uh um to to to share about so uh with that uh I’d like to thank everybody again and to um see you in 1 hour at two uh up two for the
Closing part of the conference so thanks again we have to do this