Architect-professors Carlo Ratti and Philip Yuan explain why fellow architects must adopt new technologies and construction methods for the sake of the profession’s future.

In the past few months, while enjoying virtual tours of each other’s design offices, we noticed that we both had something new – and big – in common. Peering through Zoom into studios in Turin, Cambridge and Shanghai, we noticed that each of our practices has recently devoted thousands of sq-m to large-scale, digitally-powered fabrication facilities. Fifteen years ago, we were toying with small 3D printers and laser-cutters for scale models; now we wake up to find hulking robotics and the capacity to create 1:1 components in our own studios. What happened? 

Noticing that we had all independently tended in the same direction made us contemplate our trajectories, and ponder the importance of becoming involved with full-scale manufacturing. The roots of the current transformation might be traced back to the early 2000s, when Professor Neil Gershenfeld and his lab at MIT spearheaded the establishment of the first digital Fab Labs. In a few years, thousands of these facilities have bloomed worldwide, forming a global network of devices with the power to transform digital information into physical objects. Soon, almost every design or architecture practice owned at least a 3D printer or a laser cutter to develop scale models.

Cover and above: Fab Union, directed by Philip Yuan in Shanghai, has six years of experience in designing, developing and integrating building robot systems. Since 2014, 14 construction robots have been invented based on a rigorous research and development process. The robotic masonry fabrication technique of the above integrated equipment makes it possible to position bricks precisely in construction projects.

Nomadic Wood is a free-form timber installation developed by Tongji University and Fab-Union, and part of the 2019 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture in Shenzhen, curated by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Politecnico di Torino and South China University of Technology. Taking full use of the dual-robot collaborative construction platform, this project is committed to developing a design and production framework for double-curved glulam (glued laminated timber).

Meanwhile, outside our hallowed offices, construction started evolving even more rapidly than design. The change is now widespread: full-scale, automatically produced components are making up a greater and greater proportion of final constructions – from façades to interiors. The preferred method of assembling a building is increasingly resembling that of an aircraft: a mix of some parts coming in through a traditional supply chain and others being digitally fabricated on site.

As a result, our studios need to create more than blueprints for the final building; we need to design the assembly process itself. This realization, unconsciously, led to the proliferation of large-scale fabrication equipment in our offices. We are employing a wide diversity of emerging technology, combining subtractive and additive tools in new ways. Digital factories inside design offices perform tasks like those of R&D production lines in large industrial plants. 

Together, we recognized that in order to reimagine construction, architects must expand their roles and repertoires. We will need to be fluent in programming a Kuka robot, managing a complex supply chain, laying out a workshop, and testing out new materials. Thus equipped, designers are discovering how new tools are unlocking new potentials, from CNC machines changing our relationship to plastic and ceramic printing to robotic carpentry promising unprecedented transformations to one of our oldest construction methods. 

CRA is composed of three divisions: Think, Design and Make. While each team adopts a different approach in interacting with urban matters, they all share the same vision on the future city – to materialize the convergence of natural and artificial elements. In particular, CRA Make centres its activities at the CRA Factory with a specialization in prototyping and fabrication, as well as the innovation of the relevant techniques.

Close to CRA’s design studio in Turin, the CRA Factory opens up a direct channel for team members to conduct deep experimentation in fabrication, which effectively shortens the process from conceptual design to achieving desired results. This image shows a technician programming Kuka robots to perform a set of complex moves.

As architects and machines work in close proximity, our imaginations themselves are inevitably influenced by the factory lines that edge closer and closer to our desks. The new factory is a ‘cyborg’, in which our digital tools are the co-authors of our creations. Working in such experimental assembly lines, we can hopefully close the gap of experience, understanding and even culture between ourselves and the other players in the construction industry. 

There are two reasons why we believe that as designers we should experiment with these new dimensions of construction. The first is that if we do not take such new challenges upon ourselves, others might crowd us out. Architects risk being dis-intermediated by new arrivals – from the IT industry to construction companies prone to technical innovation with a less design-oriented approach. But beyond our own stature, there’s another crucial reason why we should engage with such transformations.

CRA has focused on researching natural organisms as construction materials in recent years. One of the most distinguished results is the Circular Garden, an installation at Milan’s Orto Botanico for Salone del Mobile 2019. The structure consists of a series of 60 arches made of mycelium, the fibrous roots of mushroom, with a combined length of one km.

Amid the climate crisis – our species’ most pressing challenge – one of our first priorities should be making construction more sustainable. To achieve this task for an emissions-heavy sector, we must imagine a fundamental shift toward ‘circular’ architecture and construction. In this new paradigm, elements can be assembled, disassembled, reassembled and recycled – a far cry from the demolitions and landfills that are necessary today. Fully circular methodology must begin with the embrace of ‘dry’ assembly techniques for buildings, which can then be dismantled or recombined in different ways. 

Moreover, the new assembly line should not only use technology to be more cost-efficient, but also to consider the cultural and social meanings of our work. We should use modern tools to understand traditions – for instance, about materiality in architecture – that give personal and collective meaning to our lives.  

To keep sight of such visions, we must bring the speculative world of architecture and the realities of new manufacturing under one roof. If we do not seize the new opportunities of fabrication we may become – in the long run – irrelevant. Buckminster Fuller’s words ring as  urgently as ever: ‘We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.'

An architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He is also a founding partner of the international design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and has been involved in the launch of several companies in the USA and Europe.

Philip F. Yuan is Associate Dean, professor of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) at Tongji University, visiting professor at MIT (2019) and RMIT (2021) and Thomas Jefferson professor at University of Virginia (UVA, 2019). He founded Shanghai based firms: Archi-Union Architects and Fab-Union Technology.