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On Tuesday, Waymo announced they’d purchase 20,000 sporty, electric self-driving vehicles from Jaguar for the company’s forthcoming ride-hailing service. [...]
They estimate that the Jaguar fleet alone will be capable of doing a million trips each day in 2020. [...] if Waymo is even within 50 percent of that number in two years, the United States will have entered an entirely new phase in robotics and technology.
— The Atlantic
In his piece for The Atlantic, Alexis C. Madrigal looks beyond the technological and economic implications of Waymo's latest announcement to add 20,000 electric self-driving Jaguar I-Pace SUVs to its rapidly growing ride-hailing fleet by 2020 and instead think about the social (how... View full entry
A team of researchers from Swiss university ETH Zurich is to use robots to help assemble prefabricated timber modules into a 100 sq m, three-storey house. [...]
The robots use information from a CAD model to cut and arrange the beams, then drill holes and connect them. Human workers bolt the beams together.
— Global Construction Review
Photo: NCCR Digital Fabrication / Roman KellerThe Spatial Timber Assemblies robotic research project, with support from Switzerland's National Centre of Competence in Research Digital Fabrication, is the first large-scale architectural application for the construction robots at the new Robotic... View full entry
Using lidar-equipped robots, Doxel scans construction sites every day to monitor how things are progressing, tracking what gets installed and whether it’s the right thing at the right time in the right place. You’d think that construction sites would be doing this by themselves anyway, but it turns out that they really don’t, and in a recent pilot study on a medical office building, Doxel says it managed to increase labor productivity on the project by a staggering 38 percent. — IEEE Spectrum
"You could send in some humans with lidar backpacks, but that would be more expensive," IEEE Spectrum explains. "The company is also using drones in a limited capacity right now, since they require human supervision, but it’s easy to imagine how much more efficient this process could get as... View full entry
The Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) released designs for two light-weight pavilions to be completed next spring of 2019. In collaboration with the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart, the... View full entry
a new book co-written and co-edited by Mahesh Daas, dean of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, argues that robotics can and soon will be even further integrated into the design processes at the heart of architecture. [...]
"We talk about robots and artificial intelligence for design," Daas said. "How we use robots in the design process, moving from the design process to prototype things."
— University of Kansas
"In that sense, robots become partners in exploring and designing," Kansas Architecture Dean Mahesh Daas says. "So it's not that robots are going to take over, but the distinction between robots and us begins to get blurred. One becomes the extension of the other." View full entry
Mamou-Mani, the French architect chosen to build the 2018 Burning Man Temple, believes that robots can only further the possibilities in his field, and he plans to enlist the help of a number of robotic tools this year in creating Burning Man's most sacred structure. — Reno Gazette Journal
Burning Man is known for its over-the-top installations and structures that pop up in the middle of the the Nevada desert for a week, one of the most important being the Burning Man Temple. Next year, the temporary structure will be built by the French architect Mamou-Mani along with the help of... View full entry
Following their research into the Droneport—a project that explores the potential of an ‘infrastructural leap’ using cutting edge technology to surmount the challenges of the future—Foster + Partners is now working with Be Tomorrow UK, the UK arm of a leading autonomous drone software... View full entry
Harmoniously weaving together the art of dance and the science of mechanical engineering, Huang Yi performs a man-machine dance duet with KUKA -- a robot he conceptualized and programmed -- set to stirring cello by Joshua Roman. — Ted Talks
During aTED Talk event in Vancouver, British Columbia, Taiwanese choreographer and engineer Huang Yi performed an absolutely gorgeous pas de deux with an emotionally responsive, intricately reticulating single arm robot affectionately named KUKA. For this performance, KUKA was programmed to move... View full entry
Tybot is a robot recently invented that can tie together steel reinforcement bars saving time and reducing risk in construction projects. Thousands of joints must be tied before pouring the concrete, however this step has traditionally been labor intensive, hazardous, and a cause for major delays... View full entry
The construction sector is going to look very different in a decade or two – and so is its workforce. Are we going to be ready for it? Or will we fall behind? — Mace Group
What will the future of construction sites be? What will they look like and who will be wearing the hard hats. Does technology need a hard hat? With the industry shifting with 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence and increased productivity, how then will the construction industry at... View full entry
“Elastic Architecture: Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture” is the first scholarly book on the architecture of Frederick Kiesler, who was once dubbed as the “the greatest non-building architect of our time” by Philip Johnson back in 1960. Authored by... View full entry
This post is brought to you by AA Istanbul Visiting School. ROBOTIC MEDIATIONSWednesday, June 28th-Friday, July 7th, 2017AA Istanbul Visiting School, in collaboration with Istanbul Bilgi University, is a unique learning and making experience. The program continues to build on its expertise on... View full entry
[The] Digital Construction Platform (DCP) [is] a four-ton solar powered robot arm on tank tracks. And yet, it’s a working proof-of-concept that a machine can build a lot like a tree does, sourcing local energy and adapting to local conditions to construct a building out of local materials–anything ranging from dirt, to ice, to moon dust...The tip of the arm is fit with a nozzle that can mix and spray mud, foam, or concrete–basically any viscous building material you could imagine. — FastCo.Design
Designed by the MIT Mediated Matter group, the DCP robot is an “experimental enabling technology for large-scale digital manufacturing” that has shown impressive results in printing with various media, including light printing, excavation, welded-chain construction, and additive... View full entry
If you don't think you can handle another year on Earth, the possibility of dwelling comfortably on another planet is closer than you might expect. After announcing a winning design from Clouds Architecture Office and Space Exploration Architecture last October, NASA has released more... View full entry
One million brilliant white tiles clad the 65m-tall precast concrete roof [...] glazed ceramic tiles need to be hand-checked, or tapped, every five years by specialist engineers, who abseil down the roof “sails” looking for changes in their sound or appearance. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of the opera house, the Getty Foundation, the University of Sydney and the engineering and design group Arup, this expensive, vertigo- inducing process is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past. — theartnewspaper.com
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