Rock Print planned an architectural installation built with low-quality granular material and built by robotic machines.
The installation presents a radically new approach to The State of the Art in Architecture,
Using innovative robotic technology, Gramazio Kohler (known for her innovative approach to digital manufacturing, adapting technology from a variety of fields) Research, ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland) and the Self-Assembly Lab, MIT installs a 3D printed rock installation at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennale.
At four meters high, it is the first architectural construction built by a robotic machine that uses only rocks and wire, without any other type of adhesive. It is made up of stacked layers of aerated glass stones, and each layer is approximately two centimeters high. The stones are joined by thread.
A robotic arm of universal UR5 robots placed a layer of filament, and then the humans placed a layer of gravel, repeating the steps until the sculpture reached the desired height.
The robotic arm was guided by an algorithm designed for a 3D printing process, a process carried out by a robot to give it greater precision, the digital configuration results in a large-scale sculpture without the need for additional support.
Matthias Kohler of the Gramazio Kohler Research Laboratory said “If you touch it, you actually have falling rocks,” “On the surface, it is quite fragile, but its core is very solid.”
The idea of this project was new technologies in combination with materials assembly processes that allow reuse, that is, they created a sustainable project.
This type of research demonstrates significant advances for the architectural structures of the future.
