Browsing by Author "Yablonina, Maria"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Open Access
Adaptive kinematic textile architecture
(2020) Wyller, Maria; Yablonina, Maria; Alvarez, Martin; Menges, Achim
The research presented in this paper explores how textiles can be formed into adaptive, kinematic spaces to be able to respond to its environment and users utilizing on-site, distributed, mobile robotic connectors. The project aimed at creating an adaptive system that consumes little energy while making use of textiles’ advantageous qualities - their lightweight, portability, and manipulability. This was achieved through the development of a bespoke on-material mobile machine able to locomote on suspended sheets of fabrics while shaping them. Together, the connector and the tectonic system compose a lightweight architectural robot controlled with a feedback loop that evaluates real-time environmental sensor data from the space against user-defined targets. This research demonstrates how the combination of mobile robotics and textile architecture opens up new design possibilities for adaptive spaces by proposing a system that is able to generate a significant architectural effect with minimal mechanical actuation.
Open Access
Designing [with] machines : task- and site-specific robotic teams for architectural in situ making
(Stuttgart : Institute for Computational Design and Construction, University of Stuttgart, 2023) Yablonina, Maria; Menges, Achim (Prof.)
Over the past two decades, robotic fabrication in the context of an architectural practice has become almost synonymous with large-scale industrial robots and fabrication machines. The appropriation of industrial hardware in an architectural context has allowed designers to explore novel processes, materials, and design methodologies enabled by the freedom of mechanized movement that an industrial machine affords. However, in inheriting industrial automation technology, designers and architects had to adapt to and work around the limitations, protocols, and workflows that these machines imply. This thesis proposes an alternative approach to robotic fabrication in architecture focusing on design and development of architecture-specific fabrication robots rather than appropriating existing industrial equipment. It specifically addresses the fabrication of temporary lightweight filament structures within environments that are defined by the existing building stock. This thesis presents three case study projects, each demonstrating a task- and site-specific mobile robotic team for in situ fabrication of tensile filament structures in interior spaces. Each of the three case studies demonstrates a climbing robotic locomotion system that is designed to match the affordances of the site. Each of the robotic systems is able to navigate along the architectural features of a given interior space, and to perform filament winding fabrication tasks in order to produce room-scale architectural objects. Throughout the three presented case studies this thesis explores an approach to the design of robotic fabrication systems and workflows wherein the hardware and the design parameters are treated as interdependent variables. This approach, titled Designing[with]Machines, offers an opportunity to develop robotic hardware and software systems from scratch, and tailoring them to fit the criteria of the design and fabrication processes. The proposed methodology includes simultaneous development of hardware, software, and architectural design parameters, which can be described as a series of interdependent relationships between the machine, the site, the material, and the designer. Within these relationships, the typically rigid technical parameter boundaries of robotic hardware become compliant and adjustable in response to the design criteria.
Open Access
Spatial winding : cooperative heterogeneous multi-robot system for fibrous structures
(2020) Duque Estrada, Rebeca; Kannenberg, Fabian; Wagner, Hans Jakob; Yablonina, Maria; Menges, Achim
This research presents a cooperative heterogeneous multi-robot fabrication system for the spatial winding of filament materials. The system is based on the cooperation of a six-axis robotic arm and a customized 2 + 2 axis CNC gantry system. Heterogeneous multi-robot cooperation allows to deploy the strategy of Spatial Winding: a new method of sequential spatial fiber arrangement, based on directly interlocking filament-filament connections, achieved through wrapping one filament around another. This strategy allows to create lightweight non-regular fibrous space frame structures. The new material system was explored through physical models and digital simulations prior to deployment with the proposed robotic fabrication process. An adaptable frame setup was developed which allows the fabrication of a variety of geometries within the same frame. By introducing a multi-step curing process that integrates with the adaptable frame, the iterative production of continuous large-scale spatial frame structures is possible. This makes the structure’s scale agnostic of robotic reach and reduces the necessary formwork to the bare minimum. Through leveraging the capacities of two cooperating machines, the system allows to counteract some of their limitations. A flexible, dynamic and collaborative fabrication system is presented as a strategy to tailor the fiber in space and expand the design possibilities of lightweight fiber structures. The artifact of the proposed fabrication process is a direct expression of the material tectonics and the robotic fabrication system.