Architecturally Armed

[Image: Photo by Vincent Fournier, courtesy of Wired UK].

This morning's post about a robot-city on the slopes of Mount Fuji reminded me of this thing called the CyberMotion Simulator, operated by the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany (and featured in this month's issue of Wired UK).

The Simulator, Wired writes, is "a RoboCoaster industrial robotic arm adapted and programmed to simulate an F1 Ferrari F2007."
    Testers are strapped into a cabin two metres above ground, and use a steering wheel, accelerator and brake to control CyberMotion. The simulator can provide accelerations of 2G and its display shows a 3D view of the circuit at Monza. The arm's six axes allow for the replication of twists and turns on the track and can even turn the subjects upside down.
But I'm curious what everyday architectural uses such a robo-arm might have. An office full of moving cubicles held aloft by black robotic arms that lift, turn, and rotate each desk based on who the worker wants to talk to; mobile bedroom furniture for a depressed ex-astronaut; avant-garde set design for a new play in East London; a vertigo-treatment facility designed by Aristide Antonas; surveillance towers for traffic police in outer Tokyo; a hawk-watching platform in Fort Washington State Park.

You show up for your first day of high school somewhere in a Chinese colonial city in central Africa and find that everyone—in room after room, holding hundreds of people—is sitting ten feet off the ground in these weird and wormy chairs, dipping and weaving and reading Shakespeare.

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Anonymous Rick Thomas said...

Take a look at the last half of this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUcAPT4ohz8

November 29, 2010 4:38 PM  
Blogger jack murphy said...

a related proposal by boston-based H+Y architecture for an abandoned construction site in downtown crossing

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/10/02/eco-pods-by-howeler-yoon-architectureand-squared-design-lab/

November 30, 2010 12:59 PM  
Anonymous JM said...

If Kiva robots already smartly organize warehouse inventory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0), couldn't we do the same thing for office space? We wouldn't even have to substantially disrupt the current feel - mobile hallway modules could connect and reconfigure office space as the day progresses. Every meeting is always in the conference room just down the hall!

November 30, 2010 1:03 PM  
Blogger kronick said...

Cedric Price had only the gantry crane to capture his imagination in the 60's... were the Fun Palace designed today, I'm sure we'd see a 6 DOF robot arm or two.

November 30, 2010 3:07 PM  
Blogger W. Haasnoot said...

I appropriated the industrial robotic arm as a critique of utopia, urbanism and consumerism in a residential highrise project for uni, completed early this year. It may be of some interest, you can check it out here - http://haasnootstudio.blogspot.com/2010/11/rethinking-utopia-today.html

November 30, 2010 8:43 PM  
Blogger Alexander Trevi said...

Other RoboCoasters:

http://www.kuka.com/NR/rdonlyres/C5E8539A-BF45-4966-A351-9B1702F900AC/0/Robocoaster_Engl.pdf

http://www.robocoaster.com/

November 30, 2010 11:20 PM  

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