Robots and AI Help Design and Build Hanging Gardens

In brief:

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich is working with collaborative robots and AI to create a 22.5m high green architectural sculpture named Semiramis, after the Babylonian queen to whom the ancient Hanging Gardens of Babylon have been attributed. The structure will consist of five geometrically wooden pods supported by eight thin steel pillars and is being built with digital methods. A custom ML algorithm, developed in collaboration with the Swiss Data Science Center, offered the researchers different design options. The propositions differed as to the shapes of the pods and their spatial arrangement relative to each other. AI also highlighted how each design can affect individual target variables, such as irrigation for the pods. Matthias Kohler, Professor of Architecture and Digital Fabrication, said: “The computer model lets us reverse the conventional design process and explore the full design scope for a project. This leads to new, often surprising geometries.”

Why this is important: 

Compared to traditional wood construction, robotic manufacturing has several advantages: the robots relieve humans of heavy lifting and precise positioning, and the assembly process requires no costly, resource-intensive substructures.