Shaping sand

How can we use computational and manual design processes creatively for artistic, architectural, and engineering processes and link them with tacit material information and human experience? In the research project “Shaping Sand-Heuristic Interactive modeling” we explored the potentials of a Universal Robot for human-machine interaction in a cooperative learning environment. Basic solutions based on the deposition of sand were evaluated, combining the implicit knowledge of human action with automated robotic precision in a heuristic process. The immediacy of the experience of working with sand as a malleable substance was used to create a variety of experiments in which the scope of human action and its interconnections between virtual and actual spaces were explored and reflected. Potentially this workflow could be applied as an approach to re-usable formwork for complex cast building elements.

Cooperation with Norbert Enneking