Interactive Robotic Plastering

Walls of a huge concrete hall plastered in wavy patterns as designed by the students. In the back, a silhouette of a human sitting down in a corner

As part of the 11-week T2 project in the MAS ETH programme in Architecture and Digital Fabrication, students explored innovative digital fabrication techniques to execute a full-scale construction project. This initiative, Intuitive Robotic Plastering, merged ongoing research on Robotic Plaster Spraying and Human-Machine Collaboration to propose new methodologies for design and fabrication.

The project focused on designing and constructing an interior space within an existing structure using an adaptive thin-layer plaster printing process. Central to this approach was an interactive design workflow, where a robotic arm sprayed plaster based on recorded human hand gestures. This interplay between human input and digitally controlled robotic processes allowed for a collaborative and responsive fabrication technique, showcasing the potential of integrating intuitive human guidance with precision-driven automation in architectural production.

more information about this project

the robot spraying a layer of plaster on the wall, on the wall some plaster already formed in a wavy pattern

Instructions for human users projected on the wall, prompting human to "Draw curves while pressing the trigger". A girl uses an HTC vive controller to draw the curve as annotated on the wall

the finished result of the robotic plaster spraying with many sprayed lines on the wall in varying thicknesses

A girl draws on the wall using the HTC vive controller, while a robot mounted on a gantry plasters the walls in front of her

Gramazio Kohler Research
Prof. Matthias Kohler, Prof. Fabio Gramazio

Research team: Daniela Mitterberger (project lead), Selen Ercan Jenny (project lead)

Teaching team: Petrus Aejmelaeus-Lindström, Eliott Sounigo, Ping-Hsun Tsai, David Jenny