Rock Print, Architectural installation at the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2015 from Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich and the Self-Assembly Lab, MIT

Inspired to take 3D printing technology to new heights, ETH Zurich and MIT researchers create “Rock Print” — a full-scale architectural installation on display at the Chicago Architecture Biennial until January 3, 2016.

Standing over 13 feet (4 metres) high in the Chicago Cultural Center, the monolithic Rock Print installation with its rough and elegant contours confirms that collaboration inspires “State of the Art Architecture” – the theme of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Born out of a 2012 University of Chicago conference that brought architects, engineers, material scientists, and physicists together, Rock Print demonstrates a principle called “jamming” that refers to aggregate granular materials, like gravel that are quite literally crammed together in such a way that they hold their form and shape like a solid, even though their molecular properties are closer (in terms of behaviour) to a liquid substance.

“Jamming” together, researchers from Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich and Skylar Tibbits’ Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) produced, Rock Print – a zero waste and fully reversible architectural installation for the inauguration of the Chicago Architecture Biennial that opened on 3 October 2015.

Inspired by 3D print technology

“Rock Print is a proof of concept that takes current robotic fabrication technology and applies it to a full-scale architectural project,” said Andreas Thoma, ETH Zurich.

Petrus Aejmelaeus-Lindstroem, lead researcher for the project at ETH Zurich added, “The project shows the capacity of a 3D printing process to create a geometrically-complex construction using two simple components found in everyday life – string and rocks.”

The environmentally conscious ETH and MIT installation team used a custom robotic fabrication setup to lay down nearly 5 miles (9.1 km) of a recycled textile string in a complex pattern guided by a specifically designed algorithm. Like making lasagne, the string is alternated with layers of a loose standard concrete aggregate (rocks) from the Swiss company Misapor. The company makes self-insulating concrete using crushed glass, additives, and a heating process that expands the glass into a foam-like aggregate of mostly air.

While the foam glass is a fraction of the weight of conventional gravel aggregate, Rock Print weighs in at slightly less than one tonne (970 kg to be exact). The weight is a delicate balance – a lighter weight material is necessary for an indoor installation, but the structure of the installation depends on weight to provide strength to the compressional forces that maintain its shape and to compensate for the relatively weak tensional forces.

New possibilities for the future of architecture

Matthias Kohler, who also serves as the Director of the National Competence Centre in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, commented on how 3D printing technology may influence architecture in the future stating, “3D printing technology is an inspiration for the future of architecture as it brings together resource efficient additive building principles with new possibilities for design. Such technology enables production of complex forms and intricate details of building elements at a minimal cost. Today’s commercially available 3D printing technologies are not yet suitable for the scale needed for architecture or its economic and structural demands.”

The Rock Print installation challenges and expands the scope of 3D printing to an architectural scale by introducing robotic fabrication and the use of inexpensive, reconfigurable bulk construction materials. This approach attempts to open new possibilities for future architecture – using advanced digital fabrication technology to build with sustainable and locally available materials.

Kohler says, “There is still a lot of interdisciplinary research needed to fully understand and leverage future digital fabrication principles at a full building scale, but after ten intensive years of research in the field, I am positive that such new principles will not only lead to exciting architecture projects, but also to a new digital building culture – possibly to a socially relevant transformation of our built environment.”

Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

The research group headed by Professors Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler at ETH Zurich examines the changes in architectural production that result from the introduction of digital manufacturing techniques. The main focus is ground-breaking research into computational design, constructive systems and their synthesis through the use of novel robotic fabrication technologies. Lindstroem and Thoma indicated that Rock Print was made possible through the collaborative knowledge of architects, engineers, and computational physicists. Prof. Dr. Hans J. Herrmann and Dr. Falk Wittel from ETH Zurich’s Institute for Building Materials and Prof. Dr. Heinrich Jaeger from the University of Chicago consulted on the project.

Gramazio Kohler Research – Rock Print project page

Chicago Architecture Biennial 2015

Rock Print is on display throughout the biennial that runs through 3 January 2016 in the Chicago Cultural Center – the former public library across from the stunning Millennium Park in the heart of the city. Famous for its contemporary architecture and landmark skyscrapers, the Chicago Architecture Biennial celebrates with the theme, “State of the Art in Architecture” providing a platform for ground-breaking architectural projects and spatial experiments that demonstrate how creativity and innovation can radically transform our lived experience. It offers an opportunity to take stock of more than 70 architectural projects and experiments from 30 countries around the world. Rock Print represents the Swiss-US collaboration at the forefront of innovation in architecture.

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ETH Zurich, 2015.

Using quadrocopters and some rope, researchers have woven together a bridge strong enough to walk across.  Made at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena in Switzerland, the bridge joins two scaffolds, and is the first full-scale load-bearing structure autonomously built by flying machines. The feat represents one more step in the field of robotic aerial construction [1, 2].

Except for the metal scaffolding at either end of the structure, the bridge itself consists exclusively of Dyneema rope, a tensile material with a low weight-to-strength ratio that makes it ideal for aerial construction. Weighing just 7 grams per meter, a 4 mm diameter Dyneema rope can sustain up to 1300 kg. The 7.4 m long bridge uses various rope techniques – knots, links and braids [3] – and has a total rope length of about 120 m.

How it works

The project was developed at the Flying Machine Arena [4], a research and demonstration platform for aerial robotics. The arena is equipped with a motion capture system that provides vehicle position and attitude measurements for the small custom quadrocopters. An offboard computer runs the algorithms and sends commands out to the flying machines via a customized wireless infrastructure.

Flying machines cooperate to create a braid and brace the structure together.

Before construction begins, the location of the scaffolding is measured and input to the system. Once the anchor point locations for the rope are known, all the connections and links of the bridge’s primary and bracing sections are — without human intervention — autonomously woven and secured into place by the quadrocopters, which are each equipped with a motorized spool that allows them to control the tension of the rope.

A quadrocopter equipped with a motorized spool for rope deployment.

A plastic tube guides the rope to a release point located between two propellers. The system estimates the external forces and torques exerted on the quadrocopter by the rope during deployment, and takes this into account in order to ensure that the quadrocopters behave as desired [5].

The researchers then walk across the bridge to demonstrate its load-bearing ability.

Once the bridge itself is constructed, stabilizers are added to make it easier for a person to cross. Because there are no sensors to detect the rope’s configuration, the locations of the narrow openings of the bridge must be measured and input to the system, which then adapts the quadrocopters’ trajectories in order to weave the stabilizers.

The team also developed a series of computational tools to help identify and design the kinds of novel structures that are buildable using flying robots. Using these tools, the researchers can simulate their designs, determine feasible construction sequences, and evaluate the structure before they begin building [6].

More information and related publications can be found on the project websites:

• http://www.idsc.ethz.ch/research-dandrea/research-projects/aerial-construction.html
• http://www.gramaziokohler.arch.ethz.ch/web/e/forschung/240.html

Credits

Aerial Construction is a collaboration between the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control and Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 2015.

Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Ammar Mirjan, Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Related work

[1] F. Augugliaro, S. Lupashin, M. Hamer, C. Male, M. Hehn, M. W. Mueller, J. Willmann, F. Gramazio, M. Kohler, and R. D’Andrea. “The Flight Assembled Architecture Installation”, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 2014

[2] A. Mirjan, F. Gramazio, and M. Kohler, “Building with Flying Robots”, FABRICATE: Negotiating Design and Making, 2014

[3] F. Augugliaro, E. Zarfati, A. Mirjan, and R. D’Andrea, “Knot-tying with flying machines for aerial construction”, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2015

[4] S. Lupashin, M. Hehn, M. W. Mueller, A. P. Schoellig, M. Sherback, and R. D’Andrea, “A platform for aerial robotics research and demonstration: the flying machine arena”, Mechatronics, 2014

[5] F. Augugliaro and R. D’Andrea, “Admittance control for physical human-quadrocopter interaction”, European Control Conference, 2013

[6] A. Mirjan, F. Augugliaro, R. D’Andrea, F. Gramazio and M. Kohler,” Building a Bridge with Flying Robots”, Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design 2016, in press

Article in preparation:

1. Augugliaro, M. Schulz, A. Mirjan, F. Gramazio, M. Kohler, and R. D’Andrea, ”Building a Rope Bridge with Flying Machines”

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Photo credit: Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich.

In September a new Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) ETH in Architecture and Digital Fabrication will be offered by the Gramazio Kohler Research chair at ETH Zurich. This one-year, full-time program focuses on digital design and full-scale fabrication using state-of-the-art robotic fabrication facilities at ETH. The MAS is embedded within the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, itself an ambitious research initiative at the intersection of architecture, engineering, robotics, material and computer sciences. Interested candidates are invited to apply until April 30, 2015.

The term “digital fabrication” refers to the seamless combination of digital planning with the physical fabrication process. The project data is sent to a machine, and directly implemented in reality. However, this exchange of information could also work in the other direction: the physical conditions could immediately influence the computer-aided designs.

For architecture, this opens up possibilities that were previously undreamt of, and which go far beyond purely design-related aspects. New construction systems, material systems, resource-saving production, efficient-yet-flexible engineering and construction processes, and a transition from mass production to customised industrial production all promise a decisive developmental step towards a sustainable building culture for the future.

Unlike objects produced by conventional computer-controlled production, architectural objects are typically larger than the actual production facility, they are always unique, and they are usually produced on site. As a result, research on this topic is confronted with completely new questions: How can the automated industrial robot in the factory hall become a reactive robot for the building site? What intelligent material systems and construction systems are suited to a robot-based additive (and thus waste-free) building technique? And what do the new planning and building processes mean for the future interaction between humans and machines?

The practicability (and thus the success) of digital construction will depend not only on research, but also, to a great extent, on experts who can ensure the transfer of knowledge into practice. This is why the NCCR Digital Fabrication, in conjunction with ETH Zurich, is launching the new Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Architecture and Digital Fabrication next autumn. As the education platform of the NCCR, this programme is embedded in the context of the latest research findings. In the NCCR’s unique robotic fabrication facilities, the students will also have the opportunity to research digital design and construction processes, and to implement these directly in large-scale prototypes.

More info: http://www.dfab.ch/education/mas/

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Over the next four years, the Swiss will invest almost CHF30 million to build a new National Centre of Competence in Research for digital fabrication in architecture. The Swiss government and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) will funnel CHF13.4 million into the project. The centre will be hosted at ETH Zurich, which will contribute an additional CHF15 million as the lead institution; EPFL, EMPA, and the Bern University of Applied Sciences will also partner on the project. Encompassing the disciplines of architecture, computational design, electrical and mechanical engineering, material sciences, and robotics, the investment is an attempt to transform Switzerland’s construction sector from a resource-based industry to a knowledge-based one, and to position the country as an international leader in innovative architecture and building construction.

Coined by the Swiss architecture duo Gramazio & Kohler, “digital fabrication” is a concept for an advanced method of architectural production that uses robotic fabrication to bridge the gap between digital design and physical construction. In a recent interview, Matthias Kohler explains the impact of this approach on architectural design practice: “Nowadays, architects work almost exclusively on computers, but it is still unclear whether and how this affects the design and construction process itself. Here we are looking for new instruments to bring the design, planning and construction phases closer together in order to directly interrelate them.”

Sophisticated computational processes, non-standard material and constructive systems and adaptive strategies for controlling advanced fabrication systems will need to be developed before Switzerland’s construction industry can adopt digital fabrication as its new paradigm. Researchers in multiple fields will also need to develop common standards, interfaces and infrastructure. Knowledge-transfer to industry will be an additional obstacle, as many unanticipated technological challenges will arise when digital fabrication is applied to actual building systems.

Kohler admits there are risks: “It is a large collaboration with several research institutes. At ETH alone, scientists from the departments of architecture, IT, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and process engineering, and civil, environmental and geomatic engineering are involved. All these disciplines have a different understanding of research. One of the key challenges will be to synthesize these approaches and arrive at innovative methods and results together.”

Where will the money go?
The Swiss are hoping that a full-scale, comprehensive approach to funding the endeavour will help address these challenges. Funding, which can be renewed for up to 12 years, will be directed towards three broad areas of research for its first four years: computational design and building process innovation, non-standard material and constructive systems, and robotic control and fabrication.

Common lab infrastructure will be built to help researchers working in each of these areas to collaborate, and one of the project’s main goals is to build a full-scale digitally constructed habitation module by the end of the 4-year initial investment period. Says Kohler: “New architecture and construction technologies can be tested at Nest, EMPA’s new building laboratory. We will build a residential unit there, thus demonstrating the synthesis of our approach. Over recent years at ETH, we have seen clearly that we learn most effectively by ‘making’ – real physical implementation at full scale.”

Additional funds will also go towards supporting and training the next generation of architects through the creation of a new, one-year postgraduate Master program in Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich, the expansion of ETH’s Institute of Technology in Architecture current doctoral-level ‘Architecture & Technology’ program, the creation of various exchange and partnership programs with other universities and with industry, and the funding and support of patent applications, licensing and spin-off companies.

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