Lecture at the Smart Living Lab

Robotics and digital technologies have been changing the way we design and build. But the question today is no longer “What can we do with a robot?” but “What is the role of the machine in the design and construction process?” We can address this question by engaging with robots and algorithms from a different perspective: exploring the role of technology in the design process and finding new ways of information exchange between different agents of the process – humans and machines.

Robots working cooperatively, humans and robots building together, architects designing along with machines – the presented work explores the various relationships between designers and machines, between software and hardware, and opens up new questions and avenues for expanding the impact of digital technology onto our built environment. From scaffold-free assembly to robots employed for material reuse and computational tools designed to ease interdisciplinary knowledge exchange – the goal is to move beyond the development of material-specific processes and towards strategies for successfully integrating these new technologies into design. Ultimately, this requires the exploration of new roles for machines, new relationships between humans, algorithms and robots, and new connections across disciplines.