Prototype as artefact - Design tool for open-ended collaborative assembly processes

In digital design-to-fabrication workflows in architecture, in which digitally controlled machines perform complex fabrication tasks, all design decisions are typically made before production. In such processes, the formal definition of the final shape is explicitly inscribed into the design model by means of corresponding step-by-step machine instructions. The increasing use of augmented reality (AR) technologies for digital fabrication workflows, in which people are instructed to carry out complex fabrication tasks via AR interfaces, creates an opportunity to question and adjust the level of detail and the nature of such explicit formal definitions. People's cognitive abilities could be leveraged to integrate explicit machine intelligence with implicit human knowledge and creativity, and thus to open up digital fabrication to intuitive and spontaneous design decisions during the building process. To address this question, this paper introduces open-ended Prototype-as-Artefact fabrication workflows that examine the possibilities of designing and creative choices while building in a human-robot collaborative setting. It describes the collaborative assembly of a complex timber structure with alternating building actions by two people and a collaborative robot, interfacing via a mobile device with object tracking and AR visualization functions. The spatial timber assembly being constructed follows a predefined grammar but is not planned at the beginning of the process; it is instead designed during fabrication. Prototype-as-Artefact thus serves as a case study to probe the potential of both intuitive and rational aspects of building and to create new collaborative work processes between humans and machines.