Designing the Negative: An exploration of robotic fabrication for customized concrete formworks

Designing the Negative: An exploration of robotic fabrication for customized concrete formworks

Symeonidou, I.
Hirschberg, U.
Kaftan, M.

2013-09-19

Designing the Negative was the title of a Master Studio that took place at the Institute of Architecture and Media of Graz University of Technology during the summer semester of 2012. Students designed and fabricated prototypes of customized concrete formwork as part of their studio assignment. The studio theme forced students to think about digital fabrication with parametric tools in a hands-on fashion. Using robotic technology and hot-wire cutting, students worked with the robot’s constraints (size of the robot’s arm, robot’s axis and tool’s restrictions) to design complex curved elements that could serve as formwork (the negative) for cast concrete elements (the positive). The students were asked to design a production strategy for their cast concrete elements as well as the application of said elements in an architectural scheme. The student projects confirmed the value of a pedagogy that takes on research-relevant questions in an interdisciplinary studio setting and engages students in a process that is best described as digital crafting: it simultaneously addressed the conceptual and technical as well as the material and tactile aspects of digital fabrication and design.

digital fabrication
customization
concrete
hot-wire cutting
parametric design

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:59aaba27-e17e-48ff-887f-af04c6b04b5f

Conference proceedings

conference paper

(c) 2013 Symeonidou, I.; Hirschberg, U.; Kaftan, M.