Abstract
This IJAC Special Issue introduces the first of two publications on “Architecture in the Age of the 4th Industrial Revolution” the theme of a unique joint event, the 37th eCAADe, and XXIII SIGraDi. This 2019 conference at FAUP in Porto, Portugal, brought together researchers from the European and Latin American communities, as well as the rest of the world, celebrating the openness, friendship and exchange of knowledge to discuss the expansion of digital technologies in Architecture.
Industrial revolutions have marked the history of humanity with paradigm shifts, based on technological developments and affecting our social and economic structures. Today we live in a moment of similar radical changes in our perception and interactions with the world. Several intellectuals do not hesitate to call it “the 4th Industrial Revolution.” In a timeline, industrial revolutions are occurring exponentially faster, linked with technology growth. The first one occurred in the 18th century and the second one, almost two centuries later. The third one, a half-century later, while the fourth one within thirty years. According to Schwab, 1 water and steam power led the second wave of the first revolution, the mechanization period. Social changes fundamentally transformed cities and, together with manufactured materials such as steel and glass, promoted the emergence of new building design typologies. Electricity and Engineering marked the second revolution during the 19th century, triggering the origination of mass production systems, affecting the core of the construction industry, and, consequently, inspiring the birth of the modern movement. For some, standardization appeared as the enemy of arts and crafts, while for others, it was an opportunity to embrace novel design agendas, enabling control of new construction styles, with high-quality standards and economic efficiency. More recently, the information and communication technologies, besides the automated production of electronics, fostered the 3rd Revolution. Architecture was not left behind. The progressive expansion of the digital design paradigm affected the analysis and fabrication processes, which started to affect the traditional means of representation, exploring a higher degree of design freedom, complexity, and customization.
By the end of the 20th century, and driven by the internet and telecommunications systems, an unprecedented “fusion of technologies” from the physical, digital, biological and design realms, is disrupting the previous paradigms. The 4th Industrial revolution is expanding the use of technology in “size, speed, and scope,” affecting all areas of knowledge. In design and architecture, areas such as computational design, including additive manufacturing, virtual and augmented realities, construction robotics, physical computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and sustainable parametric analysis, are provoking the expansion of our design thinking boundaries, affecting our design methods and design materializations.
Following the joined spirit of the 2019 SIGraDi and eCAADe event, the editors from both organizations called for research contributions on this theme, selecting new and substantially expanded versions of the work presented at the conference. As a collaborative process, the editors challenged themselves to discuss the 4th revolution in a bottom-up process. For that, the editors extended the discussion of the theme through each of the paper’s comments. In this issue, the articles presented exemplify the radical paradigm shifts in design thinking, approaches, and technologies development. The first introductory article presents the expansion of the Computational Design approach across the globe, focusing on South America, with particular attention in local conditions in Brazil; It is followed by five articles tackling one of the most defining examples of the 4th industrial revolution, robotics in design: Architecture fabrication using Machine Learning; Human-robot interaction; A workflow that combines robotic scanning, neural network prediction, and 3D printing; The promotion of alternative robotic approaches in the intersection of two disciplines: Origami and microelectronics; and the introduction of computational design workflows for 3D printed lattice surfaces, as an example of additive manufacturing. The issue concludes with a workflow for the integration of design expert intuition, parametric analysis, and data analytics to support decision-making in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry.
In her paper, Gabriela Celani reflects on the impact of Computational design in South America and Brazil in particular. She uses the idea of “shortcut” to explain how the network exchanges enable access to the 4th revolution, reflecting on the need for a new computation curriculum. As a counterpoint to global discourse, we can understand reading her article that technology appropriation depends on geographical, human, and cultural contexts. The context shapes the type of problems, and therefore the process to address them, and the technologies developed. We can extend the idea of otherness related to computation, to consider other computations, using technology according to other points of views, as those mentioned in “Epistemologies from the South”, 2 or the “Global South.” 3
In a different context, Martin Tamke and the KADK Group interpret the term “shortcut” differently, demonstrating that the context and design problem type shape the nature of the “shortcut.” The project focuses on teaching a robotic arm to respond in an agile manner in the knitting fabrication process, using haptic sensors information and machine learning. Shortcut, in this case, refers to enabling a quick response, avoiding long simulation and arduous course preparations, and favouring a more flexible and adaptable fabrication process.
In Sydney, Dagmar Reinhardt and her research team embrace one of the most distinct technological features of the 4th industrial revolution: the human-robots collaboration. By establishing robust alliances with academic, industrial, and governmental partners, they explore the cyber-physical construction of timber structures. Compared with other industries, architecture stands out as one very complex field due to its scale and process intricacy, calling out for the intensive use of sensors and machine learning, among other sophisticated technologies. Nonetheless, by overcoming these fabrication and construction challenges, architects can dare to make a difference in the research field of human-robotic collaboration.
Continuing unveiling the potential of robotics, Gabriela Rossi and KADK Group introduce the disruptive field of additive manufacturing. By examining the standard procedures of printing on the top of a flatbed, they investigate a novel and robust workflow for 3D printing onto unknown and arbitrarily shaped 3D substrates. The outcome is a smart-performative fabrication process with PETG plastic, which correlates digital and physical information through the integration of dual-resolution robotic scanning and neural network prediction systems.
CREASE emerges from the intersection of two disciplines, 2D digital manufacturing and microelectronics, stimulating one of the fundamental characteristics of this industrial revolution. Saurabh Mhatre and the Harvard team explored the synchronized folding geometry enabled by Micro-electromechanical Robots (MEM). A robot pops-up from two-dimensional patterns, incorporating three-dimensional displacement, which is enabled by amplifying a rotational motion, achieving complex minimal motorized drive.
Roberto Naboni and his team discuss the computational design workflow for the Trabeculae Pavilion in-depth, taking into account design requirements, material properties, production technology, and optimization. Such comprehensive workflows, also known as digital chains, will increasingly become standard practice. However, many thresholds need to be overcome before it turns into everyday reality. Naboni’s article very well shows the way forward
The Process Lab Research group at Perkins and Will, applies parametric design, not as sweeping design solutions to generate whole buildings, but as a considered and informed approach that augments and supports the designer’s intuition. Through various case studies with the ACE industry, the designers set the stage, and then allow parametric studies to find optimizations. This approach pushed the boundary in the area of parametric design support.
While we are writing this editorial, humanity is experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic. This circumstance has pushed everyone to re-think the new ways of design architecture, collaboration, and teaching, expanding the boundaries of computational design even further. We extend an invitation to study the papers presented in this issue to gain a deeper understanding of the many ways this revolution is taking shape. The editors would like to thank all the authors and the reviewers. We are delighted with the collaborations and the impressive results under such challenging circumstances, which accentuates our need to keep together and reinvent ourselves.