Robotic Construction Paves the Way for Complex Architectural Forms

Project Name: Robotic Construction: The Glass Vault
Architects and Engineer: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Research and Implementation Teams: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Princeton University’s CREATE Laboratory and Form Finding Lab, TU Delft Glass & Transparency Research Group
Glass: Poesia Glass Studio
Robotic Arms: Global Robots
City: London
Country: United Kingdom

The success of the installation shows the impact that robotic solutions can have on the construction industry—they’re not just stacking vertical walls, but also creating complex shapes.

June Grant, the juror for the R+D Awards 2021

The integration of robotics in construction has moved beyond simple tasks like stacking walls, demonstrating their potential to create complex architectural forms. This advancement is exemplified by the Glass Vault project, a collaboration between Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Princeton University’s CREATE Laboratory and Form Finding Lab, and TU Delft’s Glass & Transparency Research Group. The project features human-scale, stationary robotic arms, provided by Global Robots, which, with human assistance, assemble a self-supporting, doubly curved masonry shell. This structure, measuring 7 feet tall, 12 feet wide, and 21 feet long, demonstrates a new level of complexity in construction automation.

The Glass Vault utilizes a thin, efficient structural system known as a timbrel vault, comprising a series of masonry arches that carry loads through compression. Constructing such a vault traditionally requires intensive manual labors, but robotics offers a transformative approach. The research conducted by the CREATE Laboratory focuses on how robots and humans can collaborate to build structures that neither could construct independently, as explained by Stefana Parascho, the CREATE laboratory’s director and assistant professor of architecture.

The construction sequence begins with the robots building a single arch at the vault’s midspan. One robot, equipped with an angled gripper, acts as a temporary support while the other robot places and adheres each brick. The robots alternate tasks until the first arch is complete and self-supporting, after which they work separately to extend the vault in opposite directions. During this process, human workers add rigid epoxy to each brick, a tsk that would be more challenging for robots to perform without additional sensors. The design of the Glass Vault is intentionally asymmetric to avoid collisions between the robotic arms during construction, with several prototypes tested to perfect the form.

The Glass Vault is constructed using transparent glass brick provided by Poesia Glass Studio, which are ten times stronger in compression than traditional clay bricks. Although the 338 glass bricks are uniform in size, their placement results in joints varying from 0.25 to 0.5 inches, with humans adding acrylic filler to the larger gaps. This method of combining robotic precision with human craftsmanship represents a modern evolution of traditional building techniques.

The final prototype of the Glass Vault was assembled during the “Anatomy of Structure: The Future of Art + Architecture” exhibition at the University of Westminster’s Ambika P3 gallery in London in March 2020. The construction was completed in two weeks, within the exhibition hours, showcasing the potential for this robotic approach to be scaled up for larger construction projects. This collaborative effort allowed the project team to explore new possibilities in merging robotic capabilities with human ingenuity, pushing the boundaries of modern construction.

The Vault’s geometry was meticulously designed to minimize tensile forces and maximize the robots’ efficiency, while the herringbone pattern used for the brick layout was selected for its structural integrity. The project avoided the need for temporary falsework, and by standardizing the brick dimensions, the team streamlined the construction process without the need for complex on-site modifications. The success of the Glass Vault demonstrates how robotics can significantly advance the construction industry by enabling the creation of complex, precision-built structures that blend automated processes with human skill.

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