ARC3020Y F
Instructor(s): Brady Peters
Meeting Section: L0110
Tuesday, 9:00am - 1:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm

Cedric Price’s famously asked “If technology is the answer, what is the question?” A provocation that suggests if we don’t have an appropriate question, then maybe we really don’t need technology. So what about robots? If robots are the answer, how will they impact into our future as architects and city-builders, what are the appropriate questions to ask?

In this studio, students will undertake individual research projects under the guidance of Dr. Brady Peters. This studio has a particular focus on digital craft, on both computational design, and physical creation. The students in the studio will be given access to use the Robotic Prototyping lab with KUKA industrial robot, with milling spindle, various grippers, saws, clay extruder, plastic extruder, and hot wire cutter. While students are encouraged to carry out research using robots, the more general themes of the studio enable other thesis projects in computation, AI, simulation, building performance, etc. to be supported. The lessons, readings, and projects of the studio will be based on the following themes:

Algorithms as a creative force

In this studio we will re-establish the vision of the original innovators that CAD is not just a better way to draw “but a deeper way to think.” Palle Dahlstedt says that “algorithms are the trebuchet of creativity”, algorithms catapult our ideas into new conceptual territory. Similarly Kostas Terzidis notes that “algorithms can be regarded as extensions to human thinking and therefore may allow one to leap into areas of unpredictable, unimaginable, and often inconceivable potential.”

Tectonic potentials of robotic fabrication

Robots and other forms of digital fabrication close the gap between drawing and making. Instructions are sent directly from CAD to machine, and in this way robots and computational methods are inevitably disrupting the traditional roles of architect and builder. Architecture is a design process that extends from ideation through to realization, therefore the introduction of robotic fabrication requires new innovations and a re-thinking of design process. In the building industry, innovation is hindered by a tendency to digitalize already existing processes instead of harnessing the inherent potentials of new technology. The research developed by this studio will investigate new design roles and technological processes that will move the building industry from prescriptive standardized production to performance-based mass customization.

Architects design for the future, they are necessary optimists – and to borrow a concept from Herbert Simon – architects design to make existing situations into preferred ones. Architects are professionally and ethically driven to design a better world, not just for their clients, but for the population at large. And this concept of “better” combines a huge number of experiential, social, cultural, and aesthetic variables. One of the central questions of this studio is the role of technology in the making of this better world.

Impacts of Technology

Ever since humans first started using simple tools, there has existed an inter-dependent relationship that technology and society have upon one another. While often promising a better future, technology can also have negative impacts. Climate change, pollution, and social inequality are all problems that can be seen to be related to human’s use of technology. Given current evidence, it seems that unhindered technological development and a quest to maximise profit has led us to the Anthropocene – a new epoch where “humans now affect the Earth and its processes more than all other natural forces combined.”

Dan Hill warns us that “we should not unthinkingly deploy robotics in place of human labour, just because we can; equally, we should not continue to use people as robots. We need to start sketching out positive relationships between people and robots.” Hill proposes the model of “shepherd/sheepdog”. In this framework, the human is the “shepherd” to the robots “sheepdog” with the human guiding and tending the work of the robot. This symbiotic relationship is a key strategy, where each is playing to their own strengths.

The studio

Together, the group will learn new skills relating to computational design and digital fabrication; as such, it is recommended that students have a genuine interest in 3D modelling and parametric modelling. With a particular focus on research, students will learn how to ask appropriate questions in order to develop new knowledge, how to communicate findings, and contextualize their work within a larger body of discourse. Through a methodology that takes projects from design probes, through prototypes, and finally to 1:1 built demonstrators, students will develop their own program of research, and critically reflect on their own work. The students in this studio will develop and investigate questions of how digital technology and digital fabrication can create better architecture, and a better future.

An optional group research trip will give students the chance to visit world-leading architectural research and prototyping facilities. A research trip to Europe will visit Copenhagen, Denmark and London, UK. We will visit research centres such as CITA, the Bartlett, the AA, and architecture firms such as Hassell and Foster + Partners.