Description
Gimme Shelter investigates the confluence of design and digital fabrication techniques- specifically as it relates to robotic fabrication, industrial design, and synthetic ecology. The ambition of this seminar is for students to conceptualize, digitally simulate, and then prototype a full scale 'chunk' of a synthetic habitat designed to aid in the survival of a wildfire. The design of these survival ‘capsules’ will draw from the behavior and physicality of the inhabiting species while considering concepts of habitation, protection, and insulation from the extreme heat of a fire. Students will develop a unique and highly controlled robotic fabrication process designed to suite the conceptual and aesthetic agenda of each project. Fabrication will necessitate the use of the Staubli robotic arms and multiple digital ceramic techniques (including a clay extruder) to produce a geometrically complex, high resolution ceramic prototype.