Jan Willmann

In-Situ Robotic Fabrication: Advanced Digital Manufacturing Beyond the Laboratory

This paper takes an important step in characterizing a novel field of architectural research where a robotic system moves on a construction site and positions building components in-situ. Developed by the research group of Gramazio & Kohler at ETH Zurich, this approach offers unique advantages over traditional building technology: it fosters non-standard building processes, it can be directly applied on the construction site and it is easily scalable and it offers digital integration and informational oversight across the entire design and building process. Featuring a comprehensive new approach to architecture and technology, this paper considers 1) research parameters and components of in-situ robotic fabrication (such as tolerance handling, man-machine cooperation and localisation), 2) experimentation and building prototypes at full architectural scale, and 3) the architectural implications of integrating these findings into a systemic, unifying process at the earliest stages of design. As a result, in-situ robotic fabrication opens up entirely new possibilities of automated construction that are not limited by the constraints of prefabrication; the most evident and radical consequences of in-situ robotic fabrication are the ability to digitally oversee and control a large number of aspects of design and fabrication within an efficient and flexible building process.

Digital by Material

The synthesis of data and material, which decisively failed to develop in the early digital age, is being realized — enticingly, playfully, and sensually — in today’s architecture. This becomes apparent in various medial, spatial and structural manifestations, whereby one premise persists: In the moment in which two seemingly separate worlds meet through the interaction between digital and material processes, data and material can no longer be interpreted as a mere complement but rather as an inherent condition and thus an essential expression of architecture in the digital age. A digital materiality is emerging, where the interplay between data and material is seen then, in a new light, as an interdependent structuring of architecture and its material manifestations. Digital materiality is thus not incidental, nor supplemental, nor is it a process of embellishment; instead it corresponds to an extensive collaboration, which can be analytically developed and implemented on an architectural scale. This leads as well to a new form of architectural expression and its material sensuality.

If Robots Conquer Airspace: The Architecture of The Vertical City

Today, more people than ever live in the metropolises of our world. The tension between the explosively growing metropolises and their satellite cities, and between these interconnected regions and the diminishing rural communities, present immense social and economic challenges that require entirely new ways of thinking about and materialising architecture if the twenty-first century’s urban adventure is to succeed. And this is expressed in the most radical way in Flight Assembled Architecture.

Gramazio Kohler Research, Automated Diversity: New Morphologies of Vertical Urbanism

Automated fabrication techniques are currently largely confined to the production of discrete objects or building elements. To notch up the potential of robotics for architectural design, it is necessary to start to push the limits and experiment at a larger urban scale. Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler are pioneers in this field. Here, with Jan Willmann, they describe the research that they are undertaking as part of the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) located at the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC) and ETH Zurich, in which robotic fabrication technologies are employed to realize 1:50 physical models of mixed-use high-rise structures that are unique in their spatial layouts.