High Wire was funded through the Applied Research Collaborative (ARC), a University sponsored design build seminar that attempts to extend initial robotic research and implementation at Taubman College through the design and fabrication of an inhabitable, architecturally scaled project.  Programmatically, ARC serves a dual purpose as lounge and meeting space to catalyze collaboration within a university research complex. The construct is integrated with an array of microphones and motion sensors whose data is processed through an interactive LED display, thus providing a visual register of interaction between the campus’s creative researchers.
ARC’s global form is a response to both the basic pragmatics of collaborative work environments (e.g.: work surfaces, projection) and the need to precisely locate an array of digital sensors in physical space. Robotically fabricated space frames provide an ideal level of flexibility to accommodate these positions.

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Youth Hostel Design Build

In the fall of 2010 the Archolab began a series of conversations with the director of Hostel Detroit, a non-profit youth hostel located in the re-emerging Corktown neighborhood in southwest Detroit. Those conversations led to a seminar course during the spring of 2011. The hostel needed an outdoor building to provide secure bicycle and equipment storage, a covered gathering and socializing space and a functional rainwater collection system to support a series of small scale organic gardens. Adjacent to the Hostel’s property are two vacant lots that frequently play host to guests and neighbors. The new building was to make the first gesture in connecting with the adjacent land and activate the Hostel’s unique set of urban spaces.

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All bent out… built working knowledge of computer aided fabrication tools and software by encouraging students to experiment through focused material research. Workshops and lectures developed core competencies in machining and detailing, while a series of small-scale, built projects encouraged critical engagement with digital fabrication strategies through speculative making.
Exploration of various techniques for bending wood provided a platform to address issues of craft, efficiency, and control in design practice. CNC routing and water jet cutting were used to directly shape material and make intelligent form work for bending hardwoods.