The Master in Robotics and Advanced Construction (MRAC) seeks to train a new generation of interdisciplinary professionals who are capable of facing our growing need for a more sustainable and optimised construction ecosystem. The Master is focused on the emerging design and market opportunities arising from novel robotic and advanced manufacturing systems.
Through a mixture of seminars, workshops, and studio projects, the master programme challenges the traditional processes in the Construction Sector. It investigates how advances in robotics and digital fabrication tools change the way we build and develop processes and design tools for such new production methods.
When you’re building with a material that has no entry in a standard structural materials library, the first job isn’t drawing a frame, it’s defining what the material actually is. That was the starting point for the structural phase of our robotic needle-felted wool prototype: before we could ask Karamba to tell us anything useful … Read more
Catalonia is 50.6% forest. Within that territory, Aleppo Pine and Common Beech offer two contrasting structural profiles that can be processed with minimal industrial transformation — provided the right techniques are recovered and updated. This mid-term review documents the first half of our Studio II research into robotic steam-bending: a workflow that pairs a vernacular … Read more
Col Ashwin – SITA (left) and Taisuke Minagawa (right) Col Ashwin – SITA Col Ashwin is a Senior Lead Enterprise Architect for the Barcelona SITA office and is originally from Kernow (Cornwall, UK). He has worked across the industry as an expert in Robotics, Open Source development, ROS development, Cybersecurity, Systems Engineering, and company compliance. … Read more
This work investigates the structural potential of straw in its raw, unprocessed state — exploiting its natural wilderness and fibrous friction to build systems from its inherent properties. By coupling these material behaviors with robotic fabrication, the process becomes parameterized, enabling a vernacular material to be deployed within a precise and predictable architectural system. Introduction … Read more
This work explores how clay can be used to introduce compression strength into flexible surfaces. By using robotics for controlled deposition, the process becomes parameterised, allowing a traditional material to be developed into a precise and predictable building system. Introduction This project proposes a system that transforms a flexible surface into a rigid, three-dimensional structure. … Read more
Introduction Can centuries-old vernacular intelligence inform the future of robotic construction? Willow Protocols is a research project developed at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) that bridges traditional Catalan basketry techniques with advanced robotic fabrication. By re-evaluating historical construction methods like Zarzo and Wattle and Daub, this project proposes a highly sustainable, hyper-local … Read more
The lecture by Mathilde Marengo, Head of Studio Operations at External References, offered an in-depth overview of how contemporary architectural practice operates at the intersection of computation, fabrication, storytelling, and experiential design. Rather than presenting technology as an isolated tool, Mathilde framed it as an integral part of design thinking. Digital tools, parametric workflows, and … Read more
Mark Burry describes his professional identity as transcending the traditional boundaries of an architect, acting equally as an activist and a researcher. Early in his career, he sought out remote environments, moving to the Western Isles of Scotland. There, he designed fundamental community facilities, such as a waiting room for a ferry at Eriskay, and … Read more
IAAC Workshop led by the Professorship of Digital Fabrication | Technical University of Munich Faculty: Begüm Saral, Avishek Das and Pit Siebenaler Design Goals and Process When designing with the bricks, we began looking at their imperfections. We thought about using and exposing these defects as part of the material’s architectural expression. The idea focused … Read more
Robotic Disassembly& Reassembly with Spatial AI In this blog post, we’re presenting the project developed during IAAC 2026 Workshop 2.2 in collaboration with the Augmented Fabrication Lab. Our focus was to step beyond purely digital design and engage directly with physical processes, using robotic systems and sensor-based feedback. Through hands-on experimentation with robotic fabrication and … Read more
The global construction industry currently faces a significant sustainability crisis, characterized by the massive generation of material waste that often bypasses recycling streams. This challenge stems primarily from a technological gap: the lack of real-time identification, sorting, and decision-making systems on active demolition sites. Without an efficient way to distinguish between various debris types, valuable … Read more
WHAT_IS_G.R.A.S.S.? G.R.A.S.S. is a hands-free design installation that lets anyone compose an urban park layout using only mid-air hand gestures and voice commands. The goal is to make spatial design accessible to non-specialists, if you can point and grab, you can design a park. No CAD skills required. Projects like MIT inFORM physically render 3D … Read more
Robotic Brickwork Disassembly & Reassembly Enabled by Spatial Artificial Intelligence In this blog post, we’re sharing the project we built during the IAAC 2026 Workshop 2.2 with the Augmented Fabrication Lab. Our main goal was to move beyond just designing on a computer and actually work with robots and smart sensors in the real world. … Read more
This article presents a project exploring how collected data can be processed and translated into automated classification and robotic decision-making logic. The core concept revolves around studying the physical condition and spatial arrangement of reclaimed construction material, extracting geometry-based and surface-level information to generate a data-driven sorting and retrieval workflow. By combining artificial intelligence with … Read more
Team Collaborative Workflow and Modular System Development Group C: Onur Dogrultucu, Priyam Ravinder, Sam Holcombe __________________________________________________________________ The workshop comprised of learning about the varying aspects of collaborative and professional workflows used within robotics development System Architecture Github Workflow & WSL Basic IDEs, Docker & Advanced Python The first day of the project was centered around … Read more
RE:PAIR –Perception-Driven Closed-Loop Robotic Repair Faculty: Hamid Peiro and Aleksandra Kraeva (Sasha) Mission Statement: RE:PAIR is a perception-driven, decision-visible closed-loop robotic system that detects cracks, repairs them using robotic 3D printing, and autonomously verifies the result. 1) Crack detection 2) Segmentation and Masking 3) Centreline and points First we outlayed the workflow of the project. … Read more
