Crisis! What Crisis? Retooling for Mass Markets in the 21st Century

Abstract

AbstractFrom his base in Southeast Asia, Tom Verebes, Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), asks what the hardcore realities are for robotics in architecture in this new ‘Asian Century’. At a time when China strives to accommodate 10 million new urban citizens each year by rolling out high‐rise residential blocks with standardised serial production techniques, what hope is there that the homogeneous Chinese city will apply robotic tools of mass customisation for the construction of distinctive, rather than generic structures?