london ENGLAND

Bartlett School of Architecture
Critic: Gilles RETSIN & Manuel JIMENEZ GARCIA

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.
Anna UBOREVICH-BOROVSKAYA, Yenfen HUANG, Chenghan YU & Hungda CHIEN: This project utilizes a robotic arm assembles pieces together, easily joining them due to the specially designed interlock system…

…Automatic assembly increases the productivity and economy of building construction/ which also leads to higher accuracy and a reduction of construction errors.

Our team project we did last year explores the feasibility of construction through the method of discrete digital design. It investigates the potential
of pre-cast concrete systems to enable flexibility and adaptability in construction and form generation by producing standardized UHPC (Ultra-High Performance Concrete) building elements where current prefabricated systems are lacking. Due to the obtained complexity of aggregation, the introduction of robotic arms for the automatic assembly becomes crucial in this project. It allows the highly-standardized building blocks to be robotically assembled into different structures, from different hierarchical building elements up to large-scale buildings.

sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?
AU-B, YH, CY & HN: ZHA, Philippe Morel, Wolf Prix, Bjarke Ingels, Gramazio and Kohler, Greg Lynn, Karim Rashid.

sP: What were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?
AU-B, YH, CY & HN: Gershenfeld, Neil. (2012) “How to Make Almost Anything. The Digital Fabrication Revolution”, Gramazio, F., Kohler, M. (2014) “Made by robots: challenging architecture at the large scale”, Lee, E., Segerstorm, L. (2016) “Bartlett AD”. London: The Bartlett School of Architecture, Retsin, G. (2016) “Discrete assembly and digital materials in architecture”.

sP: What or who influenced this project?
AU-B, YH, CY & HN: Gilles Retsin, Manuel Jimenez Garcia, Gramazio&Kohler, Jose Sanchez, Vicente Soler, Philippe Morel.