Parametric Design in Construction
Robots can build our buildings too?
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Robots can build our buildings too?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
In the previous post, we have seen how parametric design is shifting the architectural practice, changing the way we approach the built environment; adopting more data-centric workflows and thus informing the design process.
Here, we dive deeper into the actualisation of this new architecture and how with input from other industries such as manufacturing, we are able to bring the construction of the built environment into the 21st century.
Apart from generating design options and optimisation within a design space, parametric tools have the capability to bridge the design and the building process.
Essentially, a building is an agglomeration of components that are manufactured separately.
By specifying architecture with great detail in the 3D space, we are able to translate this information for construction by breaking it down into manufacturable components.
Hence, by creating a design-to-fabrication workflow, we are able to close the gap between the digital model and the physical construction process
Data-driven design approaches create nonstandard architecture, often requiring customised components.
Fortunately, today’s 3D model is a more than just an onscreen geometrical representation.
Using parametric tools, quantifiable parameters (shape, volume, size etc.) can be extracted for manufacturing/fabrication feasibility.
design → optimisation + rationalisation → building components → fabrication/manufacturing strategy → manufacturing instructions → built product
A more data driven design can be manufactured with ease by adopting a digital fabrication workflow i.e. file-to-factory documentation that allows the design to go from a design to a final form production. Complex geometries are broken down into manufacturable components to be manufactured in the process of Mass Customisation, giving the designer greater dexterity in the design process.
Adopting a complete digital workflow allows designers to accelerate traditionally complex modelling by building a feedback loop of design and construction information; preserving the aesthetic whilst ensuring a design is realisable.
Parametric design workflows open up opportunities for modular construction of components, reducing redundancy, time on site and reducing the physical workload on humans by leveraging on machinery for the manufacturing of components.
By engaging in varying manufacturing methods (e.g. additive and subtractive), we are able to mass customise construction components for the built environment, through whats known as digital fabrication. We are also able to engage digital workflows in the assembly process, allowing for larger and more complex building components.
Digital fabrication is a workflow where digital data directly drives the manufacturing process, primarily from CAD models.
Robotic fabrication is an extension of this sphere, leveraging on industrial robotic arms to extend the scale of manufacturable components.
Using these plugins, fabrication tool paths can be directly generated from the 3D model.
Additive manufacturing (AM) or additive layer manufacturing (ALM) is the industrial production name for 3D printing, a computer controlled process that creates three dimensional objects by depositing materials, usually in layers. Additive Manufacturing provides a material and energy efficient way to quickly produce architectural components of varying complexity.
Design information can be directly translated into additive manufacturing ready files that will be used to directly manufacture these components.
In subtractive manufacturing, objects are carved out of a solid block, CNC milling being the most common process. The introduction of robotic arms, extends the possibilities of CNC milling, enhancing the dexterity of the possible cuts with the higher number of axes of movement. Laser cutting and hot wire, conventional model-making techniques, also fall within this category of subtractive manufacturing..
Robotic Fabrication opens up the possibilities of digital fabrication by allowing architectural components to be made at varying scales, limited only by the working area limitations of the robots employed. Here we look at examples of robotic fabrication at differing scales.
ITeCons Laboratory's Facade
At the smallest scale, robotic fabrication can be used for making decorative elements such as facade panels, interior design and product scale that can transform the quality of spaces. An example of this is the ITeCons Laboratory’s facade in Coimbra.
As a response to labour shortages brought about the pandemic and a reduction in available skilled manual labour, construction industries are increasingly curious about automating building assembly processes. The key challenge to overcome at this scale is the nature of the multistage process of manufacturing.
Working either autonomously or collaboratively with human beings, robots are able to streamline the design to fabrication to assembly process, reducing the workload of the human being to that of supervision and planning of fabrication and assembly processes.
Architectural design can engage a bottom up approach. Designers can develop interest and research around materials and building techniques, prior to upscaling it. The flexibility of industrial robotic arms offers freedom to designers to explode the limits of the material and geometry made possible with parametric design.
As fibre composites are usually fabricated with molds, the researchers took a winding approach to create large scale differentiated hollow structure for architectural purposes.
As the building technique does not exist yet, researchers adopted robotic fabrication to generate instructions and syntaxes for this mode of construction using parametric tools from ground up.
Often, multiple software are used for architectural projects, impeding productivity. This issue is alleviated now, with increasing software interoperability.
Establishing a pipeline for software to communicate and exchange information in real time allows stakeholders to work collaboratively on the fly.
More importantly, this pipeline can stream data to robots for production and is capable of interpreting feedback, thus, creating a cyber-physical loop. This relationship can then enhance the product quality or foster dynamics between the human and machine within the creative domain.
Following are a few examples that bridge existing software in the industry.
Here are a list of robot toolkits available. These are toolkits you can use in grasshopper to program the robots directly using geometric data coming through a rhino-grasshopper workflow.
Robotic fabrication also requires entry level understanding of computation and mathematics such as matrices and inverse kinematics etc.
Also, programming literacy is highly recommended for advancement beyond basics. Here are some of useful resources that provides easy entry in the context of design.
Python, C#
C, C++ (for people who wants to start interfacing with hardware)
View projects from these online resources:
Digital and robotic fabrication is not about reinventing the wheel or complicating the process of making but it serves as an avenue to extend an artisan’s capability. It can unlock new design aesthetics or expedite collaboration between stakeholders. Design goes beyond the aesthetic and regulatory, and is now holistic through its ability to cater for manufacturing and assembly from the initial stages.
Although scaling and efficiency remains a point of debate, the intrinsic dynamic between building science and design will continue to supercharge the development of this emerging workflow for all scales of architecture.
Thanks cmdR for writing the content on this page.
cmdR specialises in robot programming, workflow design and software integration. Their interest ranges from architecture to techno-centric art performances and is always open to collaboration and experimentation.
If you are interested in anything in regards to architectural robotics, computation, collaboration and beyond, feel free to contact them.
These methodologies are entirely possible in a 3D environment like Rhino, using parametric tools such as Grasshopper. Robust plugins have also been developed within academia and the open source to control industrial arms, namely, , , etc.
Learn more about the project:
Learn more about the project:
For example, built by AA’s Design & Make students, consists of 25 timber forks harvested from the forest that were 3D scanned and milled to form the interlinking connections that form the spine of the structure.
Learn more about the project on Dezeen:
Learn more about the project:
Apart from decorative elements, individual structural components can be fabricated in a single process such as concrete 3D printing. These parts can then form a larger architectural work that is fully structural and standalone, such as , a project by Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHACODE) as seen in the video below.
Learn more about the Project:
For example, the is an innovative prefabrication process for timber frame modules. It combines timber frame construction with the precision and speed of robotic fabrication, regardless of the level of structural complexity.
Learn more about the project: .
One example is , a recent public project as part of the fibre winding research conducted at the University of Stuttgart. Researchers are intrigued by the material properties of fibre composites and speculate its use as building material.
is great for linking CAD drawings real-time within the Rhino environment. This allows stakeholder to make changes and visualise updates across computers.
allows one to use rhino+grasshopper natively within the Revit environment. It is also bi-directional. Using this, rationalised design can return to Rhino+Grasshopper as geometries for fabrication. Tool paths, target position and manufacturing constraints can be generated and simulated.
As mentioned earlier, Robotic fabrication relies on a software pipeline to connects design to production. The efficiency depends largely on the smoothness of the integrated workflow. is a flexible platform for connecting design directly to industrial robots. Plug-ins can also be developed to communicate with robots and embedded systems. This can be done either in real time or generating manufacturing instructions to be loaded onto the robots, otherwise known as offline programming.
Learn more about cmR at their .
