The second edition of Visiting School Dubai worked on advancing the research of the previous workshop by exploring avant-garde methods of materializing architecture.
We focused on challenging the prevailing modus operandi of the construction site, where laborers take on complex and sometimes dangerous tasks in the process of constructing iconic architecture for emerging cities.
AA Visiting School Dubai reexamined the potential of building ad-hoc robotic fabrication arms, which are built on site, to work hand in hand with the workers, enhancing their ability to construct complex tectonics.
Subsequently, the group looked at thin-shell constructions of fabric formwork and a composite material hybrid to achieve structurally stable compressive shells.
The process of construction was developed in an iterative manner and evolved through alternating qualitative physical models and quantitate digital simulations.
Generative design tools were used throughout this digital quantification, to simulate and evaluate the outcomes which were exhibited at Alserkal Avenue in Dubai.
