Autonomous Granular Construction
In the ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2015, designed granular
materials were used as autonomous construction
materials, whereby the particles do not need careful
placement but rather self-arrange under gravity. Looking
ahead, the ICD is currently exploring two further tracks to
turn construction with designed granular materials into
an autonomous process.
The first focuses on the development of autonomous
machines that act on the granular
material. The
machine, be it an industrial six-axis articulated robot
or a custom-made construction system, needs to be
imbued with ‘intelligence’ that allows for more advanced
processes of constructing with granular materials. In
their
Integrative Technologies
and Architectural Design
Research (ITECH) master’s thesis project Regenerative
Matter (2014–15), Ondrˇej Kyjánek and
Leyla Yunis
established a complete loop of fabricating, aggregating
and disaggregating designed granular
materials. The
loop combines non-sensory and sensory controlled
procedures using a six-axis articulated robot with one
external
axis. Their
approach is highly relevant for
autonomous machinic granular construction since it
deploys both the fast and precise production capacity
of the robot for the making of the particles, as well as
