Friday, December 4, 2015

InnoChain ETN network just started


McNeel Europe is the industrial partner of InnoChain, a European PhD program that finances 15 international PhD fellowships across leading European academic and industrial institutions in the fields of architecture and engineering starting in October 2015. The program is funded by the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Framework program, under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network scheme.

Stephanie Chaltiel is one of the Innochain scholars at the UPC/ IaaC Barcelona under Prof. Manuel Gausa. Her PhD research project investigates Small Scale Robotic Manufacturing for Large Scale Buildings in collaboration with Cloud 9 and Rok, McNeel Europe, Kuka, Robots IO.

-Abstract-
Earth construction and Robots are playful, surprising with great potential for the construction industry of tomorrow. To interact with them as architects, builders, or dwellers is also entertaining and enjoyable.

The field of investigation in terms of new forms that Mud and Robots provoke when they play together is extremely exciting, in terms of new architectural forms they can generate.

This research focuses on the use of small robots and natural local material for Housing, Sustainability and Affordability in Catalonia.

The performance in this research will be based on the small size of the robot versus the large size of the construction, on the sensitivity of the robots, on the synchronized actions and on the potential of housing quality it can generate.