It surprised me that Japan used assembly line to produce houses as manufactory product at such an early time. But when I think about Japan has always been the pioneer of robots, meanwhile that Japan has small house conventions, this makes a lot more sense.

I have seen a house manufacture cooperation in the United States. The firm provides floor plan layouts, material options, family preference etc. Customers make decisions and buy a house from this firm nothing different than shopping in Target. After the customers place the order, the firm sends a special truck with a couple of assemble operator, and they are able to assemble this house on a open site in one day. Basically they fold the house and load on the truck, after unfolding, the house is finished, has ventilation system, electrical system and ready to use.

This is quite amazing, but I start to think about to have a robot making a house, the level of design must be missing somehow. Not to say that customers have limited options to “personalize” their house, in terms of manufacture, the houses produced has to designed to match the way their robots work. Skyscrapers may need tracks that allow the robots to move, cabinets may have to be in a specific location, otherwise the robot cant install them. I still prefer a scenario that people “design” their own houses. Not everyone is architect, but everyone can be the architect of their own houses.

I am also fascinated by the fact that robots can produce living units on flow lines. When I prefer houses to be really personalized, me, as a student, on the other hand agree apartments being massively produced has a lot of advantages, and I would like to live in one of those.

Finally this article shows some example of building architecture in real scale and real building material with robots. Granted, using small flying robots and simply stacking bricks is a tricky way, since the same way would not work if the building is taller or need further fabrication. But this is still a very example, works could hardly get 20,000 bricks exactly the way they are supposed to be stacked.

Before the robots were being used in architecture, there are not a lot of repetitive forms because they are labor intensive/ tedious etc. But now because there is the existence of digital technology, it seems to me many architects are lost. They are not doing what is necessary, instead, they are doing what their tools do best. Like everyone get a fascinating new toy, and they just want to play with this toy until everyone get bored. I agree every geometry repeat 1000 times looks pretty and I agree that having a robot finish a tedious task very fast 10000 times is cool. But when I really think about it, I don’t get why everyone is doing this. If I accept the preset that you can only use stacking, and the material must be bricks, using robots is the best way. But if I ask is the porous wall really necessary? No replacement? There is probably other alternatives. I think trying to use robots do what they are good at and identify them just as tools rather than guides is key to us.

The first sentence claims that China is facing a continual demand for housing. I am not sure what about Singapore, but China has millions of empty residential. In underdeveloped regions where housing is needed, high-rise may not be the best solution. Housing issue in China is very complicated.

By looking at the various tools the robots is capable of controlling and the various building forms the robots are able to modeling, I start to realize why they decide to employ robot to model. High-rises are consists of repetitive units, and the robots are not simply stacking them together, the tools attached are small fabrication machines.

I remember when our group was doing the pinhead assignment, at that frustrating moment, I start to compare the robot to a stapler. No feed nails needed, no script needed, pin in and deform the pin simutainesly, and very accurate. Now I see a robot as the best craftsman with all the tools he needs. By reading this article I start to realize the potential of robots, and I am very interested in designing tools for robots now.

This article answers why the construction of the Temple Sagrada Familia has been take so long. At first I read this like an interesting story, but when I really think about it, I feel a little scary.

The author first talks about 3d print. When I first heard of this technology, I just thought it is a easier/ expensive way to make models. However soon after that when I knew that human organs can be print, and fatal weapons can be printed, I realized that it is not as simple as a printer. That night I literally dreamed that a 3d printer printed another 3d printer and then their entire “family”, and then they printed organs and weapons for themselves, and then I woke up. It was a scary dream, but not a ridiculous dream. It is good 3d print sometimes make modeling easier, and it could be really nice if the technology could save lives. Being able to print pistols is not a terrible thing, many people know how to make weapons, but being able to produce machines or themselves is something new. The number of machines and product could increase exponentially.

I am having an unconventional studio this semester, we make organic forms, using maya. The process of fabricating Passion façade makes me rethink the point of making irregular shapes. When designing for studio project, my default setting is that don’t worry about how it will be made, the technology now is very strong, and anything can be made. That assumption is probably wrong, In the column complete image I can still see parallel cut mark left by the fabrication process. I think I will ask my instructor how the organic form be physically produced next studio time.

I think the article does a good job introducing general knowledge of manufacturing systems. I think the most interesting part is the diagram that has flexibility as x axis and productivity as y axis.

I have been studied in both the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan, and both schools have good fabrication labs. During these years of physical modeling, I feel that making decision of which tool or which combination of tools to use is always hard. There is always another way to produce the product that is more time consuming but less labor intensive or vice versa. The diagram in the article shows exactly why. We as architecture students are very likely to model something repetitively, which is a very important characteristic of architecture. Meanwhile, we model for ourselves as opposed to factories manufacture for their  large number of customers, so we model repetitively but not that repetitively. In the diagram, rigid multi-machine system works best if productivity is the goal, while CNC single machine system is more accurate and precise. But neither of those are likely to be what we are frequently doing. Then we have to make decisions based on precision required, time, money, labor, etc.

Another thing come to my mind is that machines are replacing human labors increasingly. But the best cars and the best watches are still hand made. In theory, cars and watches are not high-tech products, so it makes more sense if machines now do better jobs assemble cars and watches. I think this is because human have experiences, a experienced worker know what the sound of the engine should be, a experienced watch maker knows what is wrong by just listening to the tick tack. a trained worker’s hands know if the bolt is too tight or too loose. Watches and cars are special items as well. They are old inventions, but not likely to be replaced by anything like CD players went distinct. Watches and cars have cultural meanings,  they represent taste, wealth, career, class, and even more.