Memos from an Inconvenient Studio Unsolicited Projects for Responsive Architectures

Abstract

Computation, robotics and intelligent building/fabrication systems are finding themselves ever more prevalent within both practice and education. The assimilation of these new tools and methodologies within the pedagogy of architectural education continues to gain greater importance as we perceive their rapid evolution and integration within surrounding emergent fields. Through the model of an Inconvenient Studio, this paper examines the intersection between interdisciplinary collaboration, architectural robotics and computation as a means of gaining a broader understanding of how the architectural learning environment can be transformed into a self-organizing system for emergent solutions. The pedagogical prototype for an Inconvenient Studio was broadly focused on the topics of architectural robotics and responsive architectures interpreted through a range of robotic technologies and their manifestations such as biomorphic, mechanomorphic, polymorphic and amorphic robotics. Through a set of three "Memos" (Self-Organization, Autonomy, Sentience), this paper will describe how students created innovative technology-driven think tanks that produced design entrepreneurs.