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

Marginality and the Third Space of Unadopted Plotlander Roads

This article explores the characteristics and relationships of marginality in informal space and plotlander housing in the context of Homi K. Bhabha’s cultural hybridity and Third Space. To illustrate and examine the processes of marginalization that defined informal space in the United Kingdom, this article will critically analyze the previously undocumented plotlander community at Studd Hill on the North Kent coastline.1 Examining key aspects of this sites social origins and its marginal spatial context reveals the positive implications and challenges of informal space and social hybridization. In this analysis, issues of spatial vulnerability and marginality of plotlander communities are critically reframed as analogous to the sociospatial characteristics and innovative practices highlighted by Bhabha in postcolonial hybrid space. Focusing specifically on the challenges of the unadopted roads at Studd Hill, this article’s comparisons reveal how the anarchistic emergence of plotlander housing in the United Kingdom has produced innovative solutions to their social marginality that reflect the spatial values of postcolonial hybrid spaces