Disarmed Strategies: New Machines and Techniques for an Era of Computational Contextualism in Architecture

Digital fabrication to date has typically been blind to context. But this need not be the case – as demonstrated by the experiments of Gramazio Kohler Research , based at ETH Zurich. They have developed systems that employ robotic arms and flying machines with feedback control to adapt the fabrication process as it progresses. From the ballistic projection of clay in a cutting-edge version of adobe, to the interlacing of string to form suspended structures in space, Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler and Hannes Mayer outline some of their inventions here.