Robotic Earthcrafts III
Last month, we completed the third edition of the Robotic Earthcrafts workshop series, which I co-organized with Fulya Akipek, following the first in 2018 and the second in 2023. An earthen mixture composed of clayey soil, lime, fibers, and cement was rammed into molds produced via robotic hot-wire cutting. The geometry of the fabricated wall is based on a hexagonal grid and features a Truchet-like variation. Constructed using four different block types, the wall was completed within 5 days and is currently on display at the entrance of the İstanbul Bilgi Üniversity Faculty of Architecture.
The weight, thickness, and forms of the blocks were decisive factors in the design process. However, the true hidden parameter was the robot and the hot-wire cutter. The relief forms, prototyped manually by students under the coordination of Fulya Akipek, were transferred to this robotic fabrication. The EPS foam pieces required for each block had different dimensions; coding and fabricating these parts constituted the project’s unseen background workload.
Assistants: Alasgar Hüseynov, Aleksandra Panchenko, Almir Can Sinanoğlu, Deniz Alkanlar, Juna Alturck, Razan Wisam Salim Al-Garah. Participants: Aylin Yılmaz, Deniz Akdoğan, Eser Cesur, Gamze Avşar, Jawan Khalaila, Nehir Demir, Nihan Dal, Selin Altay, Rayan Ebrahim, Yaprak Samira Akay, Zainab Shalabne.
Below, I’m sharing the robot code that cuts all the molds. Perhaps it might be useful for someone, someday. Naturally, this code does not include calibration. Keep in mind that you must have the Kuka-PRC add-on installed in Grasshopper for the code to run.
Cite this post
Yazar, T. (2026, August 16). Robotic Earthcrafts III. DesignCoding. Retrieved August 16, 2026, from https://www.designcoding.net/robotic-earthcrafts-iii/Related Posts
Robotic Earthcrafts Student Project: ZOM
November 6, 2018
This project is developed in the summer workshop titled Robotic Earthcrafts conducted at İstanbul Bilgi University Architectural Design graduate program. Students call this project “ZOM”. Students are Murat Sökün, Zeynep Çakmak, and Özlem Güven. We organized the workshop together with Fulya Akipek and Hülya Oral. You can find more details about the workshop here. In this project, a simple robot code created the EPS molds of the rammed-earth module. Below are some of the photos of the design and construction…
Robotic Earthcrafts Workshop
July 18, 2018
Can digital design and robot technology be integrated with an ecological design approach? The robotic earthcrafts workshop at Istanbul Bilgi University attempts to relate to biological parameters and digital design and fabrication processes. Thus, the summer school will include seminars and practices on computational design, robotic fabrication, rammed-earth construction techniques, and permaculture design principles to discuss and experience the relationships between technology and ecology. So, the results will be the proposals for micro-permaculture systems, constructed from rammed-earth blocks, with plantings….
Earthbound
August 14, 2026
Rammed earth is an unpredictable, labor-intensive building material, and far less durable than concrete. It cannot deliver the standard strength expected by engineering academia. And perhaps it is for the better that it cannot. Because it tells us an entirely different story. It reminds us architectural thinking that dares to look outside the box. What I want to share here, is not just a simple studio project, but a profound life lesson for many of us here, lived in the…
Robotic EarthCrafts II
April 1, 2025
Robotic EarthCrafts II occurred in the summer of 2024 at Istanbul Bilgi University, seven years after the first. Together with Fulya Özsel Akipek, Nilüfer Kozikoglu, Abdullah Mallah, and Halit Mallah, we experimented with the robotic fabrication of molds for rammed-earth structures. The focus shifted toward a human scale based on the experience gained from Robotic EarthCrafts I. At the workshop’s core were spatial systems resembling muqarnas, which incorporated non-planar geometric transitions. Unlike the first workshop, we utilized a parametric model to design and generate robot…
This is the new paper with Meryem Nurefşan Yabanigül, published at Automation in Construction. It is also Meryem’s master’s thesis. This study is about testing the production of curved surfaces with non-linear robotic hotwire cutting and shape memory alloys. Below is the abstract of it: Robotic arms are being used by construction firms and schools of architecture around the world in design/build research and material studies. Some of these studies utilize robotic hot wire cutting (RHC) as an efficient production…