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• Team
  • Univ. Prof. Arch. Matthias Karch
  • Max Justus Hoven
  • Mohammad Reza Abdollahi Bidhendi
  • Nicole Nickel
  • Dr. Philipp Reinfeld
  • Łukasz Lendziński
  • Wolfgang Zurborn

• Guest lectures _WHERE ARE WE NOW?

• 2024
  • AD +10 Meter _Into The Open_01 
  • AD +10 Meter _Into The Open_02 
  • AD +10 Meter _Into The Open_03 
  • FT F60 bridge Brandenburg
  • FT Cologne Deutz harbor
  • AD Grossmarkthalle Cologne_01
  • AD Grossmarkthalle Cologne_02
  • AD Grossmarkthalle Cologne_03
  • AD Grossmarkthalle Cologne_04
  • AD Grossmarkthalle Cologne_05
  • AD Marine Research Center Stavanger
  • AD Fun Palace ICC Berlin
  • FT Fun Palace ICC Berlin
  • RO Architectural Narratives 
  • MD Tegel-Süd 
• 2023
  • AD Data Center A 100
  • AD LIB 686 Cologne_01
  • AD LIB 686 Cologne_02
  • AD LIB 686 Cologne_03
  • VR Dark Tourism
  • MD The Block: Narrative Models
  • MD City of Consumption
  • MD Sensitive Volume
  • MD Celluloid
• 2022
  • EX | GREY BOX TESTING _Workshop
  • EX | GREY BOX TESTING _ALMERIA
  • EX | GREY BOX TESTING _KOLWEZI
  • EX | GREY BOX TESTING _SILICON
  • EX | GREY BOX TESTING _AUTONOM
  • AD In Limbus
  • AD Atlantikwall
  • AD Zentrum für Fotografie_01
  • AD Zentrum für Fotografie_02
  • AD Zentrum für Fotografie_03
  • AD Zentrum für Fotografie_04
  • AD Immigrants hotspot Calais
  • AD Spreepark Berlin
  • AD EXPO2021 Transformation
  • AD Calais
  • RO Cooling Clay
  • RO Projective Fabrications
  • MD Dover
  • MD Blind Spot
  • MD Power of Spaces
  • MD Flickwerk
  • MD Scaffolds
• 2021
  • AD Gasometer Schoeneberg_01
  • AD Gasometer Schoeneberg_02
  • AD Gasometer Schoeneberg_03
  • AD Gasometer Schoeneberg_04
  • AD Perception as Reality
  • AD Ebertplatz Koeln_01
  • AD Ebertplatz Koeln_02
  • AD Ebertplatz Koeln_03
  • AD Rural Taxonomy - Rheinland
  • VR Agora Virtuell
  • MD Weaving Worlds
  • MD Behind the Scenes
  • MD Borders Crossing Borders
  • MD Perspektivwechsel
  • MD Ghosts of Beirut
  • MD Codifying Embodied Practices
  • MD Flux-House
  • MD Peripherie BS
• 2020
  • EX NEUXKÖLLN
  • CO VR Symposium, Hannover
  • FT Schnöggersburg
  • EX VR-Präsentation TU Berlin
  • AD Assemble - DisAssemble_01
  • AD Assemble - DisAssemble_02
  • AD Assemble - DisAssemble_03
  • AD Rural Taxonomy - Lausitz
  • AD Virtual Reality Center
  • AD Allotment Garden Berlin
  • AD Cinematheque for Berlin
  • AD Neft Dashlari
  • VR Unbefugte Nutzung
  • MD Rural Taxonomy - Almeria
  • MD Interrail Travel Guide
  • MD Interrail Speculative Narrations
  • MD Mapping MySpace
• 2019
  • EX Kino der Moderne
  • AD Yellow Tower Hildesheim
  • AD Silk Road Duisburg
  • AD Ein ZKM für Berlin_01
  • AD Ein ZKM für Berlin_02
  • AD European Hub Inden
  • AD ÖKOstrie 4.0_BioDigital
  • AD Reverse Architecture Chemnitz
  • FT Chemnitz
  • VR Zeichnen virtueller Raumbilder
  • VR Entwerfen in der Virtuellen Realität
  • VR Being a Drone
  • VR Raumzeichnen 1
  • RO Intrinsic Acoustics
  • MD Digital Stereotomy
• 2018
  • EX Roboramics _FUTURIUM
  • AD Avus North Curve Berlin
  • AD Wuppertal Reloaded
  • AD Neues Sehen
  • AD Benno Ohnesorg
  • RO Endless Space
  • RO Roboramics
  • AR Spatial Information
  • AR Augmented Realities
  • VR Fieldstation Berlin Teufelsberg_2
  • VR Fieldstation Berlin Teufelsberg
  • MD Bending Bamboo
  • MD Skins
  • MD flow fly fold
  • MD From Idea to Design
  • MD Digitale Fabrikation
  • MD Spatial Informa(p)tions
  • MD Information Space 2
• 2017
  • CO With eyes wide shut
  • EX Photo-Based Architecture
  • AD In.Form the Void
  • AD Info.Tecture
  • AD Transforming Tegel
  • AD The space could also be different
  • VR Mit weit geschlossenen Augen
  • VR This is real
  • VR Designing Virtual Realities
  • LE Image-based Architecture
  • RO Hello Robot
  • RO Robot wire bender
  • MD Cyber Space Modulators
  • MD Ghost towns
  • MD Motion - Space - Object
  • MD Dynamic Surfaces
  • MD Spatial modular systems
  • MD Foams
  • MD Tomorrow land
  • MD Information Space
  • MD Hybrid Processes 2
• 2016
  • EX March Formations
  • EX Modular spatial installations
  • AD Connecting the Dots
  • FT Connecting the Dots
  • AD Kultur.Raum Amsterdam
  • AD WissensRäume
  • AD Climate Mod Station
  • RO In-Space
  • RO Spatial Composition
  • MD Totale Inszenierung
  • MD Conduct light - Transform space
  • MD Hybrid Processes
• 2015
  • EX Bigger than life
  • AD Checkpoint Charlie theater
  • AD Honecker Bunker Prenden
  • FT Honecker Bunker Prenden
  • RO The Unseen Ornament
  • MD WovenWoodWall
  • MD Bunkerarcheology
  • MD Upside down
  • MD Floating Concrete Shells
  • MD One to One
  • MD Foldable Surfaces
  • MD Image Based Architecture
  • MD Linear Constructions
  • MD Reconstructing Tschernichow
  • MD Cut Fold Turn
  • MD Metabolism Printing
  • MD Enter the Void
• 2014
  • EX Smart modular systems
  • AD Nuremberg transscription
  • AD Avus north curve
  • AD Time out zones
  • FT Time out zones1
  • FT Time out zones2
  • AD Hacking Berlin Teufelsberg
  • FT Hacking Berlin Teufelsberg
  • AD Moma Tower
  • AD Highrise Topology
  • MD The Continuity of Space
  • MD Continuum Structures
  • MD Dissolving Funnel
  • MD Photopology 1
  • MD Cut to fit
  • MD Parametric tiling
• 2013
  • EX Out of Control
  • AD The sky over Berlin
  • FT The sky over Berlin
  • MD Wolfsburg Westhagen
  • MD Neighborhoods Westhagen
  • MD PanOrama: Alles sehen
  • MD Drawing machines
  • MD perForm
  • MD Scheme and system
  • MD Blowup
  • MD Follow the line
  • MD Micro Pneumatic Structures
• 2012
  • EX inForm
  • EX ConStructs
  • AD Bauhaus Museum
  • FT Bauhaus Weimar
  • AD Ernst Reuter Platz Berlin
  • MI nCloths
  • MD Raumparallaxe
  • MD Ambiguous composing
  • MD Mapping
  • MD Wooden Textiles
  • MD OnLine
  • MD Never trust a surface
  • MD Outskirt Phenomena
  • MD Aural Architectures
• 2011
  • EX SpaceInversions
  • AD Spree Space Bridge
  • AD Rhoen Flight
  • MD Space on the drawing
  • MD Exhilarated with the depth
  • MD Stop motion space
  • MD Urban-image-spacing
  • MD Bit-mapping space
  • MD Photo stitching reality
• 2010
  • EX Explosee
  • EX Video reprojections
  • EX Tape Deck
  • AD Sustainable Center Afsluitdijk
  • AD Hangar J 1000
  • FT Junkers+Bauhaus Dessau
  • MI Hangar J 1000
  • MD Medial design processes
  • MD Responsive_wall
  • MD The flow of things
  • MD PhotoStitching Reality
  • MD Space projections
  • MD Urban_bit_map
  • MD Google's street view
  • MD Structural constellations
  • MD Intersection space
  • MD Parts of space
  • MD The section maker
• 2009
  • EX Towers in CNC milling
  • AD Frankfurt high-rise
  • MD Complex capacities
  • MD Production from Reality
  • MD Medial design processes
  • MD The parallel city
  • MD The reality of the medial image
  • MD Sequential movie objects
  • MD Street View _Locative Virtuality
  • MD Soundscapes
  • MD Space modulator
  • MD Paper cuts
• 2008
  • EX Mediaturen
  • AD Home game
  • MD Smart surfaces
  • MD The imPerfect form
  • MD On growth and form
  • MD From image plane to depth
  • MD Projection drawings
  • MD Sight in movement
  • MD Walk the Line
• 2007
  • EX Towers in color
  • PE 2' 11'' Soundscapes
  • MD The imPerfect form
  • MD Rather than plan
  • MD Programme.System.Coincidence
• 2006
  • AD Berlin Vertical
  • AD Beijing Space
  • FT Visiting China
• 2005
  • PE Mediaturen
  • EX Raum:Ge:Bild:e

ROBOTIC DESIGN LAB | The Unseen Ornament

“ Ornament is lost work force and therefore lost health...Today it also means lost material und both means lost capital...The modern human, the human with modern nerves, does not need the ornament, he misprizes it.” - Adolf Loos: Ornment and Crime, 1908

With the emergence of the modern age the ornament nearly completely disappeared from architecture. Following the quote of Luis Sullivan:“form follows function” yielded the tradition of the complex and playful ornament as seen during the “Jugendstil” and the Expressionism to a novel functional “Neuen Sachlichkeit” which was mainly represented by the newly founded Bauhaus. Next to the programatic reasons, this turning away from the ornament was often out of purely rationalistic and economic reasons. The creation of ornament that was neither functionally nor structurally valid was from there on banned from architecture.

Due to the emergence of computation in architecture, especially in the field of digital modeling and digital fabrication the ornament currently undergoes a renaissance. The implementation of a digital process chain enables not only for the creation of complex geometries, but also for a controlled manufacturing process in accordance with economical production costs.Next to the already well discovered and established digital fabrication technologies, such as 3d printing and CNC-milling, recently robotics expands this spectrum. During the design class, therefore the emerging potentials of robotics were experimentally investigated by the students. Within the process the robots were in an additive and a subtractive manner utilized to inscribe a digitally generated pattern into a fluid medium under the usage of a previously designed analog endeffectors. As a support the whole pallet of digitally available tools (image processing, modeling and parametric tools) were utilized to create data sets which were than converted into the needed robot tool path by the utilization HAL a Rhino Grasshopper plugin for robot control.

The design class was there splitted into multiple working packages that had to be simultaneously processed.

Formwork Inlay

The design of a reusable formwork, that allowed to join the resulting tiles in an intelligent manner, to create a continuous look of the ornament tough out the individual panels. This formwork should have the dimensions of approximately 500mm x 500mm x 300x mm and was constructable out of special casting plates. As a further extension of the task an inlay had to be designed that would fit the dimensions of the formwork and could therefore be placed inside. This inlays were due to the prohibition of a flat backside of the tiles and therefore should also be incorporated into the design process. This inlays could be created directly by using the robot which would inscribe the pattern into a stable medium such as moulding sand or clay or that could be fabricated using CNC-milling process. In this process it also had to be considered that the resulting tiling system had to be seamless.

Material Science

Next to the design of the formwork for the tiling system, a suitable fluid materiel had to be found with chartists material values (strength and form stability), which enabled for the creation of the individual tiles. In analog studies the students were investigating to inscribe patterns into a fluid medium, to check for their return flow and viscosity.

Ornament Design

The ornament was than created by using the contemporary available pallet of digital design tools. Previously a study of historic ornament had to be conducted to contextualize the design within a certain era. For the process of creating the pattern the formwork, inlay and the design of the analog endeffector had to be considered. The resulting design had to be realizable with the utilization of the robot in combination with the analog endeffector and the predeclared toolpath.

Analog Endeffector

An endeffector had to be designed that was suitable to inscribe the ornament into the fluid medium.The tool had to be created under the utilization of 3D-printing or a laser-cutting process and under accordance of an iterative process of testing and redesigning.

HAL-workshop with Thibault Schwartz and Tristan Gobin

Directed by: Daniel Büning