@PHDTHESIS{20.500.11850-364322, author = {Parascho, Stefana}, year = {2019}, publisher = {ETH Zurich}, address = {Zurich}, copyright = {In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted}, size = {235 p.}, language = {en}, abstract = {Robotic fabrication has expanded existing construction techniques, i.a. through enabling the assembly of bespoke structures made form discrete elements. This has substantially increased the design freedom, particularly through allowing designers to conceive and fabricate structures with complex geometries. However, this design freedom along with the intricacies of new fabrication methods has introduced new challenges regarding both digital design and materialisation. Robotic assembly, like other fabrication techniques, comes with its own constraints and limitations which are often difficult to intuitively describe. Similarly, bespoke geometries can result in complex geometric dependencies. This leads to a need for design methods that can control the resulting complexity and integrate it in the design process. The thesis is built around a cooperative robotic assembly method that utilises two robots to construct spatial structures made of steel bars. This expands existing assembly techniques by enabling the robots to change their role during the fabrication process while at the same time supporting each other. As a result, bespoke structures with complex geometries are built without the need of supporting or guiding structures. The proposed structures are based on a novel construction system that allows for a high level of differentiation. This is achieved particularly through a connection typology that allows to accommodate bars connecting at individual angles to each other. Furthermore, it presents a computational design strategy for geometrically, structurally and fabrication informed designs that is based on the assembly sequence and allows for a reciprocal information flow between design and fabrication. The goal of the thesis is to provide a set-up for designing and constructing spatial structures by connecting design and fabrication in one interlinked process. This is achieved through a combination of physical prototyping and digital design generation, by simultaneously developing the three main topics of the research: Constructive system, which includes geometric, structural and material systems, cooperative robotic assembly and computational design. Following hypothesis lays at the base of the thesis: Developing computational tools for simultaneously controlling the complexity of design, fabrication and structure leads to the mitigation of the limitations of prevailing spatial structures. This, in turn, allows architects and designers not only to fabricate complex designs but to envision new typologies of structures by gaining control and fully exploiting the design space resulting from fabrication, structure and geometry. Ultimately this leads to an expansion of the architectural design language.}, keywords = {robotic fabrication; computational design; digital fabrication; cooperative robotic assembly}, type = {Doctoral Thesis}, DOI = {https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000364322}, title = {Cooperative Robotic Assembly. Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication of Spatial Metal Structures}, school = {ETH Zurich} }

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