Abstract
The paper describes a laboratory experiment carried out at Lawrence Technological University - College of Architecture and Design. The project assumes that the ubiquity of digital technologies in the framework of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has an important potential for the conservation of Cultural Heritage. The enhancement of digital resources, the possibility to access data simulation, and the availability of new construction tools such as robots allow for restoration methods to be augmented by digital data. In the current technological ecosystem, Cultural Heritage can benefit from digital information and digital fabrication, to achieve both digital and tangible conservation. The experiment simulates an on-site robotic fabrication process by imagining an integration of machines in the conservation building site. An industrial robot was used to operate within vertical and horizontal constraints on irregular surfaces to fabricate the missing volume of a wall gap. An abandoned church in Detroit downtown was used as a test case. A methodological workflow emerged from the research process and was evaluated as a proof of concept.
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- 1.
The concept of postindustrial society emerges in countries that experienced the Industrial Revolution (i.e. United States, western Europe, and Japan). It is characterized by a transition from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy. For further information, see: https://www.britannica.com/topic/postindustrial-society (accessed: October 25th, 2020).
- 2.
The experiment was developed during the second doctoral year within the program International Doctorate in Architecture and Urban Planning (IDAUP) at the Department of Architecture – University of Ferrara for the development of the dissertation “Innovative construction systems within building processes. An approach to large-scale robotic Additive Layer Manufacturing for the conservation of Cultural Heritage”.
- 3.
The activity was funded by the Italian Ministry of Education with the Research Grant for Doctoral Activities Abroad (3,500 €). The budget covered the purchase of 3D printing material and the equipment needed to build a customized robot end-effector.
- 4.
A common workflow used to program Kuka robots consists of drawing the robot motions (toolpath) in Rhinoceros and turning the geometry (usually splines or polylines) into target points using Grasshopper. Finally, the plug-in Kuka|Prc is used to translate target points (defined by a plane and a normal vector) into coordinates and polar rotations in relation to the origin (x, y, z = a, b, c = 0, 0, 0) that corresponds with the robot’s base. Moreover, Kuka|Prc allows for the interpolation of target points to densify the toolpath and avoid approximation during the robot motion in the physical world. The input is a geometry; the output is a system of coordinates. The script can be validated digitally before running the program on the robot.
- 5.
For further information, see: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/digital-construction-platform-v-2/overview/ (accessed: October 25th, 2020).
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Codarin, S., Daubmann, K. (2021). Robotic Fabrication in Conservation: Digital Workflows and Skills Evaluation. In: Ioannides, M., Fink, E., Cantoni, L., Champion, E. (eds) Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection. EuroMed 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12642. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73043-7_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73043-7_20
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