Architectural robotics, as an emerging field, facilitates innovative means to incorporate informed materiality in building processes and products. Design and development of customized robotic production methods aim at achieving multi-scalar material architectures. This includes applied research through prototypical case studies on porosity, hybridity and assembly as operational design strategies that enable robotic fabrication to integrate computation, automation and materialization. The one-to-one built prototypes emphasize computation at multiple scales, automation of various fabrication techniques and employment of different materials. This integration, on the one hand, expands the material property space for architectural applications, while on the other, enhances the quantitative and qualitative performance of building spaces. Hybridization of digital design and physical production mediums advance robotics in architecture, pushing for effective and efficient materialization approaches. The versatility and programmability of robotic fabrication propose constructive systems in which on-demand design and production become feasible. This multi-scalar materialization model, tailored for robotics, leads to volumetric tectonics that perform from architectural scale, through the assemblage of unique components, to the in-depth design of material.@en

This paper presents the integration of an Internet of Things wearable device as a personal interfacing node in an intelligent built-environment framework, which is informed by Design-to-Robotic-Production and -Operation principles developed at Delft University of Technology. The device enables the user to act as an active node in the built-environment's underlying Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network, thereby permitting a more immediate and intuitive relationship between the user and his/her environment, where this latter is integrated with physical / computational adaptive systems and services. Two main resulting advantages are identified and illustrated. On the one hand, the device's sensors provide personal (i.e., body temperature / humidity, physical activity) as well as immediate environmental (i.e., personal-space air-quality) data to the built-environment's embedded / ambulant systems. Moreover, rotaries on the device enable the user to override automatically established illumination and ventilation settings in order to accommodate user-preferences. On the other hand, the built-environment's systems provide notifications and feedback with respect to their status to the device, thereby raising user-awareness of the state of his/her surroundings and corresponding interior environmental conditions. In this manner, the user becomes a context-aware node in a Cyber-Physical System. The present work promotes a considered relationship between the architecture of the built-environment and the Information and Communication Technologies embedded and/or deployed therein in order to develop highly effective alternatives to existing Ambient Intelligence solutions.

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Robotic Building implies both physically built robotic environments and robotically supported building processes. Physically built robotic environments consist of reconfigurable, adaptive systems incorporating sensor-actuator mechanisms that enable buildings to interact with their users and surroundings in real-time. These robotic environments require Design-to-Production and -Operation (D2P&O) chains that may be (partially or completely) robotically driven. This chapter describes previous work aiming to integrate D2RP&O processes by linking performance-driven design with robotic production and user-driven building operation.@en

Design to Robotic Production (D2RP) establishes links between digital design and production in order to achieve informed materialization at an architectural scale. D2RP research is being discussed under the computation, automation and materialization themes, by reference to customizable digital design means, robotic fabrication setups and informed materialization strategies implemented by the Robotic Building group at Hyperbody, TU Delft.@en

This paper presents a new instance in a series of discrete proof-of-concept implementations of comprehensively intelligent built-environments based on Design-to-Robotic-Production and -Operation (D2RP&O) principles developed at Delft University of Technology (TUD). With respect to D2RP, the featured implementation presents a customized design-to-production framework informed by optimization strategies based on point clouds. With respect to D2RO, said implementation builds on a previously developed highly heterogeneous, partially meshed, self-healing, and Machine Learning (ML) enabled Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network (WSAN). In this instance, a computer vision mechanism based on open-source Deep Learning (DL) / Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for object-recognition is added to the inherited ecosystem. This mechanism is integrated into the system’s Fall-Detection and -Intervention System in order to enable decentralized detection of three types of events and to instantiate corresponding interventions. The first type pertains to human-centered activities / accidents, where cellular- and internet-based intervention notifications are generated in response. The second pertains to object-centered events that require the physical intervention of an automated robotic agent. Finally, the third pertains to object-centered events that elicit visual / aural notification cues for human feedback. These features, in conjunction with their enabling architectures, are intended as essential components in the on-going development of highly sophisticated alternatives to existing Ambient Intelligence (AmI) solutions. @en

Building technologies employed today in 2nd and 3rd world countries are imported, expensive, outdated and unsustainable. Highly developed countries, on the other hand, rapidly advance in developing affordable, numerically controlled and robotically supported material- and energy-efficient methods for building on demand. The research team proposes to close this gap by applying advanced design-to-robotic-production (D2RP) technologies developed at Technical University Delft (TUD) to construction problems in 2nd and 3rd world countries. The provided tool base uses refurbished robotic technology, which is retrofitted with state-ofthe-art open source control software, and by employing local approaches and available materials the dependency on imported materials and processes is drastically reduced. The D2RP unit is coupled with the electricity generating Kite Power (KP) system developed at TUD to create a mobile sustainable autarkic unit that can be deployed everywhere.@en

This paper presents and discusses the development of a materially informed Design-to-Robotic-Production (D2RP) process for additive manufacturing aiming to achieve performative porosity in architecture at various scales. An extended series of experiments on materiality employing robotic fabrication techniques were implemented in order to finally produce a prototype on one-to-one scale. In this context, design materiality has been approached from both digital and physical perspectives. At digital materiality level, a customized computational design framework has been implemented for form finding of compression only structures combined with a material distribution optimization method. Moreover, the chained connection between the parametric design model and the robotic production setup has enabled a systematic study of specific aspects of physicality that cannot be fully simulated in the digital medium. This established a feedback loop for not only understanding material behaviours and properties but also robotically deposit material in order to create an informed material architecture.@en

This paper discusses the development of an informed Design-to-Robotic-Production (D2RP) system for additive manufacturing to achieve performative porosity in architecture at various scales. An extended series of experiments on materiality, fabrication and robotics were designed and carried out resulting in the production of a one-to-one scale prototype. In this context, design materiality has been approached from both digital and physical perspectives. At digital materiality level, a customized computational design framework is implemented for form finding of compression only structures combined with a material distribution optimization method. Moreover, the chained connection between parametric design model and robotic production setup has led to a systematic study of certain aspects of physicality that cannot be fully simulated in the digital medium, which then establish a feedback loop for underrating material behaviors and properties. As a result, the D2RP system proposes an alternative method of robotic material deposition to create an informed material architecture.@en