Abstract
Industrialization of architectural components and technological advances have had a significant impact on how we design and build. These developments, resulting in mass-produced and panelized architectural components, have rationalized building construction. However, they often do not reveal the true potential of the inherent qualities of malleable materials. This research investigates the bespoke design potentials of combining a cementitious plaster, with a robotic spraying and forming process, and proposes an adaptive thin-layer additive manufacturing method for plasterwork. Research goals address an on-site construction system that is capable of performing continuous robotic plaster spraying on building elements. To support the understanding of the complex-to-simulate material behavior in this process, systematic studies and physical testing are proposed to be conducted to collect empirical knowledge and data. The goal is to explore bespoke surface qualities, with minimal waste, moving away from the modular and standardized form of the material. The paper presents the preliminary results and findings of the method that aims addressing the challenge of an adaptive construction system capable of performing continuous fabrication, for which mobile robots are proposed to be deployed.
Highlights
Surfaces inside or outside of building structures are treated with malleable materials such as cement, lime, or gypsum that play both functional and ornamental roles
One contemporary example taking advantage of thermal and aesthetic properties of a cementitious malleable material can be found on the façade of the Fondation Laurenz Schaulager building in Münchenstein, Switzerland, by Herzog de Meuron Architects, being a hybrid building with a function that lies between a warehouse and an art center (Fig. 1)
Rather than working with the modular and generic forms of the material that are optimized for manual assembly, such as plaster in its panelized form (Fig. 3), this research explores the material‘s unique properties, bringing it together with on-site mobile robotic fabrication
Summary
Surfaces inside or outside of building structures are treated with malleable materials such as cement, lime, or gypsum that play both functional and ornamental roles. Such challenges led to common usage of the so-called “plasterboard”s (Fig. 2, right), being gypsum in an industrial form that has become prevalent as a time- and labor-saving alternative to typical “wet” plastering, acting as a thermal and an acoustic barrier on walls and ceilings. Such prefabricated elements are cheap, optimized alternatives to a typical plastering process, with the downside being that the malleable qualities of the material have been lost (Fig. 3). Rather than working with the modular and generic forms of the material that are optimized for manual assembly, such as plaster in its panelized form (Fig. 3), this research explores the material‘s unique properties, bringing it together with on-site mobile robotic fabrication
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