A team from Princeton University and the IE School of Architecture and Design are constructing a vaulted pavilion with the aid of artificial intelligence, holograms, and augmented reality at IE University’s campus in Segovia, Spain. The team, comprised of architects, engineers, craftspeople, and IE students, is led by Syrian-Spanish architect and IE architecture professor Wesam Al Asali along with Sigrid Adriaenssens, director of the Form Finding Lab at Princeton University.

The open-air vaulted pavilion will adopt a 10-foot-tall tripod structure without the need for formwork and will measure 16 feet long and 10 feet wide. To construct the pavilion, an initial layer of industrial hollow bricks will be laid, clad with tiles. Augmented reality glasses and Microsoft’s HoloLens app will then be employed in the bricklaying process, allowing builders to follow holographic guides to know the exact placement of bricks.

“AR technology allows the craftsman to work faster and more efficiently and accurately, and by using computational analysis, construction patterns can be generated for future projects and elevate the traditional skills of craftsmen to other levels,” explained Professor Al Asali. “The technology allows us to visualize the lines that the structure follows with great precision before building it, brick by brick.” This method, he says, “saves a lot of materials for making the mold, guides, and formwork for the vault, and also helps us to understand better how a building behaves during construction.”

The bricks used in the project have been manufactured and provided through local supply chains. The team sees the combination of locally sourced materials and technology designed to minimize waste as a response to the New European Bauhaus Initiative and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Artificial Intelligence series.