Martin Bechthold (professor of architectural technology, co-director of the DDes Program and director of the GSD Technology Platform) and a group of GSD students joined hundreds of artists, designers, fabricators and industry leaders at Rob|Arch 2014, a biannual conference created by the Association for Robots in Architecture.
Bechthold co-chaired the Informal Material Formations workshop with Felix Raspall (DDes candidate) and colleagues from Graz University of Technology. Nathan King (DDes ’14) and University of Innsbruck colleagues co-chaired a workshop titled Phase change: Explorations of Robotic Forming of Thermoplastic Materials.
Students also presented papers at the Ann Arbor event. Rachel Dickey, Jili Huang, and Saurabh Mhatre (all MDesS ’15) shared their research Objects of Rotation, bridging traditional methods of ceramic wheel throwing with digital automation techniques. Jared Friedman, Olga Mesa and Heamin Kim (all MDesS ’15) discussed Experiments in Additive Clay Deposition: Woven clay. Friedman, Ahmed Hosny (MDesS ’15), and Amanda Lee (MDesS ’14) presented Robotic Bead Rolling, exploring structural capacities in metal sheet forming. View the complete conference schedule.