Architects, artists, and designers have been fascinated by robots for many decades, from Villemard's utopian vision of an architect building a house with robotic labor in 1910, to the design of buildings that are robots themselves, such as Archigram's Walking City. Today, they are again approaching the topic of robotic fabrication but this time employing a different strategy: instead of utopian proposals like Archigram's or the highly specialized robots that were used by Japan's construction industry in the 1990s, the current focus of architectural robotics is on industrial robots. These robotic arms have six degrees of freedom and are widely used in industry, especially for automotive production lines. What makes robotic arms so interesting for the creative industry is their multi-functionality: instead of having to develop specialized machines, a multifunctional robot arm can be equipped with a wide range of end-effectors, similar to a human hand using various tools. Therefore, architectural research into robotics is not so much directed at reinventing machines for architectural fabrication, but rather at reusing industrial robots as a well-established basis and adapting them for architectural purposes by developing custom software interfaces and end-effectors. By doing this, architects, artists and designers have advanced from being mere "users" of robots and have successfully emerged as recognized developers and trendsetters in robotic

fabrication.

This book publishes the proceedings of the fi rst international conference on robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design, Rob|Arch.

The Association for Robots in Architecture has been pioneering the easy use of industrial robots for the creative industry and has authored multiple peer-reviewed papers on the use of robots in architecture. They are participating in international research and industry projects and have recently become KUKA System partners.

Sigrid Brell-Cokcan and Johannes Braumann are co-founders of the Association for Robots in Architecture and organizers of the Rob/Arch 2012 conference. They are board-members of the trans-disciplinary research association, along with robot expert Eric Dokulil. Sigrid Brell-Cokcan is a professional architect with her own successful architecture firm II Architects int in Istanbul and Vienna. Johannes Braumann is the main developer of KUKA/prc.

Zusammenfassung

This volume collects about 20 contributions on the topic of robotic construction methods. It is a proceedings volume of the robarch2012 symposium and workshop, which will take place in December 2012 in Vienna. Contributions will explore the current status quo in industry, science and practitioners. The symposium will be held as a biennial event. This book is to be the first of the series, comprising the current status of robotics in architecture, art and design.

Preface.- Approx. 15 Contribution-Papers.