Workshop-Interactive Soft Actuated Installation

The rise in technology is not just changing fabrication in architecture but increasingly providing opportunities for animating the materiality of architecture offering responsive, performative and adaptive design possibilities for the built environment. A fundamental challenge when using robotic elements is their suitability to safe, and comfortable use in proximity to the human body, as we concentrate on user - building interaction and experience. This workshop will offer a developed kit of parts to allow networked local and adaptive interaction between architectural elements, as well as configuration of these elements made from meta-materials, while using soft actuation techniques. Research and prototyping we have conducted and that we plan on testing through this workshop, suggest that soft actuators are preferred over rigid actuators when it comes to robotic applications for physical human interaction and delicate object manipulation. Through this workshop, we plan on testing these principles and passing what we have learned in our research work in the Czech Republic and abroad onto FA students. The aim is to create a functional interactive installation (1: 1 prototype), which will be presented to the public and its results published in a paper at an international conference.