The International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction
Publications / 1996 Proceedings of the 13th ISARC, Tokyo, Japan
What is a Robot?
The late 1950's saw the onset of many utopian visions of automation in the fields of Architecture and Construction. Architects began to imagine how automotive technology might fuse with design ideas, and even, how technology might become the generator of form. Perhaps, for the first time, however, the possibilities that automation as a generator of form, both on a domestic scale, and on a utopian scale began to trigger creative thought, the field of Art, Architecture and Design saw a proliferation of wild fantasies, ranging from the sublime to he ridiculous. As with most of the predictions of future technology, neither vision has proved to be very close to reality. Nonetheless, automation technology has continued to advance, and there is no doubt that its continued refinement is desirable. We will discuss whether advancement of the science is hampered by a strict adherence to the notion of "full-automation", and, whether the inclusion of humans into the equation, with the Robot as tool, is a hindrance to progress, or alternatively, a more realistic and perhaps socially acceptable alternative.