As the practice of architectural design evolves, digital fabrication has evolved alongside it.
Industrial machines once used primarily for monotonous, assembly-line tasks have been advanced and integrated into the field of design and creative practice.
This topic was centre stage in Toronto in late May as the City?s two leading design schools, the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, and Toronto Metropolitan University?s Design + Technology Lab at the Creative School, welcomed the annual Robots in Architecture (ROB|ARCH) conference. Framed, this year, around the idea of ?Beyond Optimization?, the known limits of digital fabrication were surpassed by the exceptional rigour and innovation presented through the week?s workshops, paper discussions and keynote panels. ROB|ARCH (Photo credit: 6ix Filmz)
ROB|ARCH 2024 began with a series of eight workshops running from May 21st – 23rd, split between the design spaces at the Daniels Faculty and the Creative School. The workshops were led by practitioners in the architecture and robotic fabrication realm, coming from institutions across North America, the United States, Europe and beyond. Among the broad group of participants were post-secondary students dipping their toe in the robotics practice, as well as digifab veterans hoping to diversify both their skill set and their robotic-enthusiast network.
ROB|ARCH (Photo credit: 6ix Filmz)
One of the workshops teams who demonstrated the seamless integra...