Negotiated matter: a robotic exploration of craft-driven innovation

This paper introduces a novel approach to craft-driven robotic innovation in architectural research. Here craft is not portrayed as a source of ornamental or historical inspiration, but instead as an open-ended process described by a framework involving material properties, diverging modes of knowledge production and representation, emergent tectonic configurations and embodied interaction with technology. To do so, this paper firstly contrasts a definition of craft (Pye 1968) with practices of robotic architectural production. Additionally, the notion of emergent tectonics resulting from negotiated material and technological processes is addressed by critically situating the theories of architectural tectonics by Kenneth Frampton (2001) and digital tectonics by Leach, Turnbull and Williams (2004) in the context of robotic fabrication in architecture. Finally, the ongoing project “Computing Craft” is presented as a case study illustrating a proposed framework for robotic craft-driven innovation

Ionisationsmechanismus in der Relaxationszone schwach instationärer Stoßwellen in Argon und Krypton

The primary ionisation relaxation up to electron densities of ne = 4·1013 cm-3 is investigated by means of 4 mm - microwave - interferometry. The values of the timedependent gas temperature Ta, and gas density na behind the shock front are calculated using a gasdynamic model which strictly takes into account the instationarity of the flow. From the results it is concluded that neither the familiar two step process dominated by atom collisions nor the assumption of additional excitation processes by electron collisions can fully describe the observed ionisation rates. There is evidence that both the ionisation rates and the electron temperature are influenced by transitions between the first four excited states due to superelastic electron collisions. As a result the electron temperature may even exceed the gas temperature