The 1st RILEM International Conference on Concrete and Digital Fabrication is a combination of two events that will be held at ETH Zurich. It will be held directly before the ROB|ARCH 2018 conference (Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design), with a common plenary session between the two conferences in the planning. Both conferences will bring together world-leading researchers at the forefront of new robotic technologies and digital concrete material science. On the 9th of September, PhD training courses on rheology and admixtures will be held.
The ROB|ARCH conference series is a collaborative effort between the co-hosting universities, industry partners, and the Association for Robots in Architecture. The adoption of digital fabrication in the creative industries continues to accelerate as the potential for innovation and creative expression using robotics is being harnessed. The ROB|ARCH conference series aims to allow practitioners to share expertise, to bring together teams of international researchers, to foster networks, to increase knowledge, and to stimulate innovation. To achieve this aim the ROB|ARCH conferences combine academic presentations with hands-on workshops held in the three days preceding the conference.
Call for Workshops
ROB|ARCH 2018 will convey a broad spectrum of artistic, scientific and entrepreneurial skills, strategies and principles of robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design, linked with the aspiration to promote critical approaches, cooperation skills and creative applications not just in individual areas of knowledge, but also beyond. This cross-disciplinary approach complements the transformation processes that robotic research and creative industries are increasingly facing today in a globalised and interconnected world.
As such, the conference and workshops will provide key insights into various theories, techniques and methods of robotic fabrication from a number of areas. It addresses key topics such as collaborative design tools, digitally induced materials, adaptive sensing and actuation, machine learning, human-machine interaction, large-scale fabrication, networked workflows, and most importantly, redefining cross-disciplinary work in an era of global digitalisation and knowledge transfer.
The 2018 workshops will take place at ETH Zurich and are proudly hosted by the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, a cross-disciplinary research network leading the development and integration of digital technologies within the field of architecture. Against this background the conference will provide an ideal setting for a series of interdisciplinary workshops pushing the boundaries of the state-of-the-art in robotic fabrication. The ROB|ARCH workshops will allow for hands-on experience with the most current robotic technologies, offer a unique platform for dissemination of new knowledge, and provide an opportunity for researchers, practitioners and industry leaders to share and exchange expertise, explore methods, compare techniques and create new connections.
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit proposals for two-day OR three-day workshops, which will be held September 10th – 12th, 2018. Workshop proposals with strong cross-disciplinary trajectories that actively integrate experts from multiple fields are highly encouraged, e.g. in the form of collaborative experimentation, complementary fields of knowledge, combination of various technologies, etc, leading to exciting practical work and other outputs with high impact potential. Please refer to the document ”Workshop Proposal Guidelines” for more information and submission requirements.