a warm wellcome back…


…to the science city
After another intense week in Schlieren,the last brick was finally cut yesterday and therefore the decision was made, that more time is needed for the proper completion of the final assembly. Considering the fabrication module as an “undisclosed case”, the MAS1112 team retreated back in hoengeberg and the warm premises of HPZ to go on with the programming module.

From Dusk Till Dawn

One day before the extension period expires and the Kuka robot is working non stop. Apart from the opportunity to see the dawn in Schlieren campus, we are more than excited to see the final geometry coming to shape. The team seems to be tuned in the right work-flow… Continue reading

Schlieren update!

 

After a huge effort these last days, and the gradual overcoming of certain drawbacks that were constantly appearing, all teams worked hard together to prepare, cut, label and finally glue and assemble the bricks into the final pieces. Given the difficulties of building such complex shapes along with the lack of basic masonry skills we were only able to build half of the final design.  On Monday morning,  after pausing the robot for some hours to let the dust settle down and be able to clean up the Knochenhalle, the scheduled presentation took place.

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22.11.2011 / Theo Spyropoulos

Behavioral Agency

The lecture will feature recent work developed by the Design Research Laboratory (AADRL) and the experimental design studio Minimaforms examining a behavior-based agenda that engages experimental forms of material and social interaction. Cybernetic and systemic thinking through seminal forms of prototyping and experimentation will situate the work through continued experiments Continue reading

M1 Theory and Information

Information is everywhere. The term ‘information’ is so powerful, yet we understand it so little. Information is information. It’s neither energy nor is it matter (as Norbert Wiener claims). But this doesn’t say a lot, and perhaps it isn’t even accurate, because matter is a form of energy. What, though, is information? Perhaps the question is put the wrong way. Couldn’t we ask instead: how can we use information?

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Hands On !

With the end of the competition and the beginning of the second week, the operations were transferred to the CAAD facilities in Schlieren , were the Kuka robot is situated. The team was introduced to the robot operations, had a first look on the material and made the first test pieces, incising an ytong block with a jigsaw attached to the Kuka’s arm. Continue reading

Competition entries

The design brief required a self standing structure specifically designed for our workspace  in the CAAD building. This should bring into play ideas on function and context, related to our conceptions of our working environment and ideas on materiality related to the distinctive  properties of the ytong blocks that were set as the building material. The design process should take into consideration the fabrication capabilities of the Kuka Robot and the great potentials opening up with the interplay between physical tools and computational processes. Continue reading

04.11.2011 / Chad McCarthy

Information age buildings

Chad McCarthy was born in New Zealand and studied electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Auckland specialising in Power Electronics. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1997 and worked for NDY and Ove Arup designing Europes first large capacity data centres and completed research work in the simulation of harmonic currents in data centres. Continue reading