REXLab - Robotic Experimental Architecture 2.92

AA VS Innsbruck marks the beginning of a research initiative around robotic prototyping methodologies that would allow rapid and cost-efficient fabrication of non-regular geometrical topologies. Driving from observations of natural environment and the Tyrolean extreme winter conditions that formulate ephemeral geometrical figures of snow or ice, the aim is to research on ways to reproduce them, in an accelerated yet non-liquid process.

Directors: Pavlos Fereos | Georg Grasser
Tutors: Pedja Gavrilovic | Philip Rust

The ABB industrial robots of REX-Lab programmed in combination with custom designed apparatuses will form a framework for a proficient, flexible and universal process describing and fabricating implicit topologies found, observed and documented in nature.

The incentive derives from the observation that despite the increasing popularity of natural morphologies within the architect’s agenda, the fabrication techniques are mostly confined through 3d-printing, which does not contributes to any advancement towards larger scale fabrication. In large scale projects that include paneling or cladding with constant change of shape or curvature without any standardization or breakdown into repeatable components, the material waste for one-time-usage molds can exceed by far in volume the actual product.

The Innsbruck Visiting School raises, therefore, the question of whether a robotic fabrication method could be developed having significant advantages over other known rapid procedures, yet maintaining an adequate level of accuracy and being superior in terms of cost-efficiency, material waste and production pace.