Project
Wood Program Aalto’s Glulam Pavilion in Kuhmo
Sep 18, 2025
About this work
Wood Program Aalto’s Glulam Pavilion in Kuhmo
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Course Content
4 Lessons
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The Designing for Robotic Fabrication workshop by the ZHA Code provides a gentle, hands-on introduction to geometry topics of stereotomy, ruled surfaces, and their computational adaptation.
Instructors
Team behind this course
1 course5.0
4 courses5.0
Digital design and robotic fabrication technologies are rapidly maturing towards mainstream architectural application. To participate in this structurally performative, material-saving and aesthetic revolution architects and designers need to incorporate, among other parameters, fabrication related expressive opportunities and constraints into the early design stage. This maturing paradigm of fabrication-aware creation of shape – so called Architectural Geometry has a symbiotic relation with the design-research trajectory of Tectonism which stylistically expresses the inherent structural and manufacturing logics of the shape.
Architectural geometry and Tectonism simultaneously incorporate traditional wisdoms and historic practises methods of design and construction, particularly those related to masonry and timber construction and state-of-the-art methods of Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Geometric Design. This contrasts with the currently widespread paradigm of history and process-agnostic creation of shape. This subsequently leads to materially wasteful designs, and time and resource-expensive, post-processing of such shapes to modify the shapes to suit manufacturing requirements.
Introduction to stereotomy and ruled surfaces in architectural design.
Hands-on experience with geometric topics and their computational adaptation.
Understanding the principles of robotic fabrication in architecture.
Techniques for integrating fabrication constraints into early design stages.
Practical skills in remote access and operation of industrial robotic setups for cutting materials.
Course Content
Approx. 1 hour lecture each day, 4 hours total.
Approx. 2-hour tutorials each day, 8 hours total
Approx. 30-minute robot time per student (access times will be outside of workshop time)
2-hour first review of student work
2-hour of final review of student work
Sep 18, 2025
About this work
Wood Program Aalto’s Glulam Pavilion in Kuhmo
Shajay Bhooshan is a studio master at the Architectural Association DRL (AADRL) Master’s program in London. He is also a Senior Associate at Zaha Hadid Architects where he co-founded and heads the Computation and Design (CODE) group. He pursues his research in structure and fabrication aware architectural geometry as a PhD candidate at the Block Research Group, ETH Zurich. Previously, he completed his M.Phil from the University of Bath, UK and M.Arch from AADRL.
Federico Borello is a registered Architect (OAT and ARB), currently based in London. He has a master’s degree with Honors from the Polytechnic of Turin and an MArch degree from the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory (DRL) in London. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY) and has participated in multiple international workshops, including AA Visiting School in Rome and London. He is the co-founder and Director of ENCODE – Design & Technology, a consultancy practice for Architects, Engineers, Manufacturers, and Contractors to develop and deliver innovative projects from early design stages to construction, leveraging state-of-the-art virtual construction technologies and DfMA processes. Federico worked for over four years in London as a Senior Architect at Zaha Hadid Architects in the CODE group (Computation and Design), with a core focus on digital fabrication and structure-aware geometries, robotic-assisted manufacturing, and 3d printing. He also worked in Italy with Cesare Griffa Architects, Camerana & Partners, and Gufram. Federico is also a Lecturer at UCL Bartlett BPro in London, where he co-leads the Research Cluster 10 in Architectural Design. He has taught numerous courses and conferences including AADRL (London), Bartlett BPro (London), Tonji University (Shanghai), CITA (Copenhagen), ACADIA (Austin).
Leo Bieling is a registered architect (UK, Germany and Austria) and part of the Computation and Design Research Group (ZHCODE) at Zaha Hadid Architects in London. His current research is motivated by observations regarding data-driven design, digital fabrication technologies and emerging trends in contemporary living. He has taught several international workshops including CAARDIA in Beijing, RobArch hosted at ETH Zurich and at the B-Pro Bartlett in London. In these courses, he continued his design-research in architectural geometry towards robotic and digital fabrication implementations
Cesar Fragachan works for the Computation and Design group of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHCODE); He is a registered Architect in Venezuela. He holds a M.Arch(Hons) from the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory (AADRL). He also holds a MBA from the IESA Institute, and B.Arch(Hons) from Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela. His ongoing research is focused on computational design, game technologies and digital fabrication in robotics. Previously, Cesar was a studio professor at Universidad Simon Bolivar, worked at Mendoza-Capiello Arquitectos, and established his own professional practice where he developed several residential, office and hotel projects.
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