ETH Zurich working with robots to evoke Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Researchers from ETH Zurich are building a tall architectural structure that will evoke the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in a project that involves working collaboratively with robots.

Called Semiramis after the Assyrian queen who is sometimes associated with the ancient garden, the project has been designed with the help of artificial intelligence and is being built with the assistance of four robots.

The structure will feature five geometrically complex wooden pods, each planted with trees and other vegetation. It will reach 22.5 metres into the air and be supported by eight thin steel pillars.

The Semiramis "hanging garden" structure is being built with the assistance of robots

Semiramis is destined for the grounds of Tech Cluster Zug, an innovation centre under construction in Zug, Switzerland. The structure will be erected and planted out in spring 2022.

A research group from ETH Zurich, led by architecture professors Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, designed Semiramis, with assistance from Müller Illien Landscape Architects and timber construction company Timbatec.

The design involved software and algorithms created by the Swiss university's researchers and applied for the first time on this project.

The algorithm driving the arms coordinates their movements so they don't collide with each other

A machine learning algorithm, developed in collaboration with the Swiss Data Science Center, presented the researchers with a range of design options that fit their inputted requirements.

The options included different pod shapes and spatial arrangements and would highlight how the differences affected individual target variables, such as pod irrigation.

The researchers then tweaked the designs in the Immersive Design Lab, an augmented reality laboratory on the university's Hönggerberg campus.

This used a software developed jointly with ETH Zurich's Computational Robotics Lab, and allowed the researchers to explore and fine-tune the designs together in augmented reality.

The robots work collaboratively with humans, who do the work of gluing the panels together with a special resin

The software would adjust the structure's entire geometry around any change, always generating the most efficient and load-bearing configuration.

"The computer model lets us reverse the conventional design process and explore the full design scope for a project," said Kohler. "This leads to new, often surprising geometries."

The final design the researchers chose for Semiramis is now under construction at the Robotic Fabrication Laboratory at ETH Zurich, where four suspended robotic arms work in tandem to assemble its wooden pieces.

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The robots work directly from the computer design, picking up panels and maneuvering them into a precise position, but humans are also integral to the process, as expert craftspeople apply a special casting resin to glue the panels together while they are held in place.

This has benefits for both the workers and the environment, as the craftspeople avoid the work of heavy lifting and positioning, and no resource-intensive substructures are required.

Each of Semiramis' pods is composed of 51-88 wooden panels, and the algorithm calculating the robot arms' movements makes sure they avoid collision.

The robots work from a computer design developed by human designers working with AI

"Semiramis has been a beacon project for architectural research, bringing together people inside and outside ETH and advancing the key research topics of the present, such as interactive architectural design and digital fabrication," said Kohler.

ETH Zurich is one of the world's leading technology universities and undertakes many complex architectural projects. Its recent work includes the DFAB House, which is entirely designed and built using new digital processes, such as robotic timber construction and 3D sand printing.

Its researchers were also behind the Kitrvs winery in Greece, which has a wall laid using a technology dubbed "augmented bricklaying".

Project credits:

Industry and research partners involved in the project: Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich
In collaboration with: Müller Illien Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH, Timbatec Holzbauingenieure Schweiz AG
Client: Urban Assets Zug AG
General contractor: Erne AG Holzbau
Team: Matthias Kohler, Fabio Gramazio, Sarah Schneider, Matteo Pacher, Aleksandra Apolinarska, Pascal Bach, Gonzalo Casas, Philippe Fleischmann, Matthias Helmreich, Michael Lyrenmann, Beverly Lytle, Romana Rust
Industry partners: TS3 AG, Intrinsic
Selected experts: Chair for Timber Structures, ETH Zurich; Computational Robotics Lab, ETH Zurich – Krispin Wandel, Bernhard Thomaszewsky, Roi Poranne, Stelian Coros; Swiss Data Science Center – Luis Salamanca, Fernando Perez-​Cruz

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California students build Arroyo Bridge using collaborative robotics

Students at the University of Southern California's School of Architecture have designed and built a complex bridge in Los Angeles using a semi-robotic process that slashed construction waste.

The 70-foot Arroyo Bridge began life as a speculative project in a University of Southern California design-build studio, headed by lead researcher R Scott Mitchell.

The Arroyo Bridge was made in a collaborative robotic process

It is designed as an intricate web of steel tubing, with a layered structure inspired by leaf veins and tree branches.

The bridge's structure was the result of a challenge that saw 13 undergraduate students tasked with designing a pedestrian bridge using parametric design tools.

While the design was initially hypothetical, it had to suit a specific site across a Los Angeles canyon, providing access to treetop views on either side.

It is made of an intricate web of steel tubing, achieved through parametric design

The complex geometry meant the design would be nearly impossible to build with traditional manual manufacturing methods.

Working with the Martin Architecture and Design Workshop (Madworkshop) and engineering software company Autodesk, the group began investigating how it could be done using robotic assistance.

"While the final steel design was feasible, the geometric complexity and asymmetry would have required impractical amounts of fixturing to hold structural members in position prior to welding," Mitchell told Dezeen.

The structure is informed by the veins of leaves

"In the weeks following the studio I began thinking about the prospect of placing and holding structural members with little or no fixturing. An industrial robotic arm proved to be the best, if not only, solution," he continued.

The process the group developed had human welders working with industrial robot arms that held the parts in the position required. The robots could achieve far more precise positioning than using supporting formwork.

This kind of process is known as collaborative robotics because rather than replacing workers with automation, it has the two working together on the same task.

Human welders worked with robots to fuse nearly 600 steel pieces

"Early on we realised that the robots are far more accurate than the physical world," said Mitchell. "The imprecision of the most basic materials could throw off a day of work."

"Using these methods we were able to hold under one millimetre of tolerance on the robotically positioned nodes, far under the engineers' maximum allowance of six millimetres."

Working this way, they welded 600 parts made from A500 tube steel and A572 plate steel into 30 sections. These were then fixed together on site.

The robots effectively eliminated the need for formwork in the welding process, cutting down on the usual material waste.

The bridge was assembled on site from 30 sections

Scrap steel was also kept to a minimum by precision pre-cutting the structural elements using multi-axis tube laser and waterjet cutting machines. In total, the project generated less than 500 kilograms of construction waste, all of which was recycled.

Mitchell says that while the project could have been executed using traditional fixtures and fabrication techniques, it would have been far more expensive and wasteful, and far less accurate.

The bridge spans 70 feet across a Los Angeles canyon

"The construction framework would have likely cost more than the bridge itself, only to be scrapped or recycled upon completion," he told Dezeen.

"I would estimate the total at two to three tonnes, at least half of which would have been directed to a landfill."

The bridge was originally a hypothetical project but ended up being built

Collaborative robotics combines the precision of robotics with human creativity and adaptability.

"Any sort of automated system is often really brittle," said Autodesk Research Robotics Lab principle research scientist Heather Kerrick. "As soon as anything is out of whack or unexpected the entire system can break down."

"What industry has often done to respond to that is to try to reduce any source of chaos," she continued. "What this project does instead is allows for that chaos and then leans on humans to help adapt and take that chaos in stride."

It was produced by students from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture together with Madworkshop

The Arroyo Bridge took six years to go from design to completion. Its steel structure is finished with a reddish brown long-life coating that complements the surrounding plant life.

A previous USC course, also led by Madworkshop and Mitchell, had students design shelters for LA's homeless population, with projects including a shopping cart converted into a tent structure and a tiny house made of scavenged material.

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

Project credits:

Project Manager: John Uniack
Gigante AG Project Designer/Lead Researcher: R. Scott Mitchell
Job Captain: Adan Macias
Computational Design: Alex Weisfeld & Diana Yan
BIM Coordinator: Scott Davis
Autodesk Research Robotics Lab Senior Research Scientists: Evan Atherton & Heather Kerrick

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