CORALLOID COCOONS

CORRALLOID COCOONS

Research and design: Marjan Colletti, Johannes Ladinig
REX|LAB Collaborators: Georg Grasser, Galo Patricio Montayo Asan, Pedja Gavrilovic, Lukas Jonathan Härtenberger, David Christoph Stieler, Christoph Tobias Schlopschnat, Peter Griebel
Sponsored by: Ars Electronica; the Faculty of Architecture Innsbruck University; the Institute for Experimental Architecture and REX|LAB – Innsbruck University

The installation is part of a series of prototypical and theoretical investigations into FrAgility, which explore the synthesis of agile robotic fabrication methods with fragile materiality. In this case, 3 industrial robots have 3D-printed their own structural, ornamental, porous and coral-like sheltering cocoons in concrete, one of architectures archetypical materials. In a second stage, which can be observed live at the Ars Electronica 2016, the robots spin a much finer, filigree and elastic layer of PLA in a process of cocooning. The installation symbolizes the on-going metamorphosis of robotics in architecture to transform from stubby and clumsy Fordian caterpillars to frAgile post-digital chrysalises.