Design Approaches Through Augmented Materiality and Embodied Computation

With the increase of research experiments engaging the potential uses of industrial robotics in architecture, it becomes necessary to categorize the components of these exercises within a number of directions and motivations which can be related in the field, and to their larger consequences within the architectural discipline. In this chapter, we present a number of approaches to robotic design/fabrication exercises that deal with information, interactivity, and material dynamics. We outline the concept of ‘informed operator’ fabrication, in which computer numerical control (CNC) is used as a means for providing information to the operator in addition to the conventional use of providing instructions to the machine. Building upon this, the concepts of embodied computation and augmented materiality are discussed within the context of robotic manipulation. Embodied computation is introduced as enabling a protraction of the design/fabrication sequence beyond the scope of digitally controlled tools, such that robotic or human actions trigger ongoing material responses. Augmented materiality is presented as the human occupation and influence upon this “material in the loop” procedure, as enabled through interactive and digitally mediated interfaces.