The ‘Tea House’ Structure
Conforming to the traditional dimensions of a Japanese Tea House of 9’ x 9’ x 6′, the space provides a series of interactions between user and space, space and robots.

The Robots
TST_003, RDO_002, and MXR_011 all have unique traits, behaviors and interactions. The interactions move between user and object, object and space. TST_003 is a toaster. RDO_002 is a radio and MXR_011 is a stand mixer. They all have been reconceived as sense-enabled robots with speculative features.

TST_003
Fastest of all sense-enabled toasters
New and improved user-recognition settings

Have toast how you want it, wherever you want it.  The TST_003 can rove the kitchen and navigate your home with ease. Save time with user-recognition settings.  Store your preferences by bread variety and desired brownness to ensure perfection every time. TST_003 can fully recharge itself* and perform routine upgrades** too! It’s the perfect appliance for contemporary living.

*Requires solar-powered recharging station. Supplied separately.
** Requires interweb connection.

RDO_002
Most extensive dynamic tunable capabilities from both in-orbit and deep space sources.
Don’t buy any other all-in-one media device

Personal Deep Listening Device able to tune in any homo sapiens-derived broadcast frequency in the known universe. RDO_002 intuitively selects media to suit or enhance your mood and puts together a completely immersive experience. RDO_002 with superior media programming from our extensive digital rights managed library*. RDO_002 moves between standard, mood enhanced or fully autonomous mode. And with a simple request you can set it to genre spinner – mixing across media. RDO_002 can fully recharge itself** and perform routine upgrades*** too! It’s the perfect media device.

* Requires lifetime subscription.
**Requires solar-powered recharging station. Supplied separately.
*** Requires interweb connection.

MXR_011
The best kitchen aide you’ll ever have
Automatic and Autonomous – true multi-tasking and sensing in one appliance

MXR_011 modern features makes cooking a real joy. Saves time by handling all your food prep needs. It slices, grinds, chops, and juices with included attachments. More powerful mixing makes batters easy. Mix finder dial gives you multiple speeds with the press of a button. It’s mobile for recharging* and can perform routine upgrades** too! It’s the perfect culinary integration device.

*Requires solar-powered recharging station. Supplied separately.
** Requires interweb connection.

THR_33 is a collaboration between rootoftwo (Cézanne Charles and John Marshall) and PLY Architecture (Craig Borum and Karl Daubmann).

TST_003 Promotional Material

We have been working on TST_003 – our ToasterBot for the “Teahouse for Robots” exhibition (The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan. Friday, July 9 – Sunday, August 22, 2010). We have a working set of prototype electronics and we have a first draft chassis built as a proof of concept. The CAD models for the robot shell are about 80% done. Bosses, ribs, intake slots and mounting brackets are next. There also needs to be some branding on the side which is looking very blank at present. The front end of TST_003 is shamelessly ripped off from a Dualit toaster merged with an Airstream trailer on tank tracks.

CAD models of products

We are working on a project for the following exhibition:

“Trouble in Paradise / The Ethics of Survival”
Date: Friday, July 9 – Sunday, August 22, 2010

International Symposium: “Creative Engagement / The Ethics of Survival”
Date: Part I: Saturday, July 10, Part II: Saturday, July 31
Location: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

It is a speculative space in a ‘home of the future’ where domestic appliances (robots) can go to recharge, update their firmware and generally get away from it all. The starting point (see image above) for our robots are over-engineered, emotionally-durable, iconic products. You could say we are suckers for ‘Raygun Gothic’ – but we prefer the term ‘SodaPop Chic’.

Karl Daubmann is working on the tea-house structure.

The SIGGRAPH 2009 Design & Computation Gallery explores non-linear and biological processes in design and digital fabrication through selected works of art, architecture, and design. The work’s inherently generative nature encourages many lines of investigation along two main paths:

• Generative design – algorithm and process, explorations of phase space and path-dependent emergent phenomena, form-making versus form-finding, and iterative design such as simulation, analysis, and optimization.
• Digital fabrication – the interplay between digital representation and the crafting of physical objects; formation of structures by aggregation, weaving, and layered manufacturing; and exploitation of organic and composite material properties.

Monumental Nets
Janet Echelman and Buro Happold Consulting Engineers
Sculpture that synthesizes traditional fabrication methods with digital form-finding to create monumental public sculptures.

Schiara Lantern
Greg Lynn/FORM and Kreysler & Associates
A large, volumetric lantern made of translucent fiberglass composite panels formed on CNC-milled molds.

Complex Form in Timber
Fabian Scheurer
designtoproduction
Constructing free-form architecture in timber using parametric design and computer-controlled fabrication tools.

Assemblages
Chris Lasch & Benjamin Aranda
Architects pursuing design ideas based on Quasicrystals, forms that are rigorously modular yet grow wild.

MyLight.MGX
Materialise.MGX
A family of lamp designs that are unique for each customer, made with rapid manufacturing techniques.

Holy Ghost
Lionel Theodore Dean
A chair designed using genetic algorithms to determine modifications to the iconic Louis Ghost chair by Philippe Starck.

Ground Substance
Sabin+Jones LabStudio
A hybrid architectural design and biological research unit that demonstrates new modes of thinking in design and material construction.

Pluripotent Structures
Ferda Kolatan+Erich Schoenenberger
su11 architecture+design
An investigation into adaptive and variable formal and structural organizations that have more than one possible outcome yet maintain coherence.

‘Nora & Torvald’
By rootoftwo (John Marshall and Cezanne Charles)
Birch plywood, Arduino micro-controllers, sensors, speakers, audio.
‘Nora & Torvald’ embeds sensor-controlled digital media in custom-designed pieces of furniture. The starting point of this work is a re-reading of Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House” (1879) to explore user-object relationships.

There is a photocell embedded in the seat of the armchair ‘Torvald’. This sends a message when it registers darkness (i.e. when someone sits down). This triggers a randomly selected line of dialogue (one of ten) from the play to be played as audio. There is an accelerometer in the rocking stool ‘Nora’. When she is rocked this triggers a randomly selected line of her dialogue (also one of ten) to be played as audio.

A&D 5th Annual Faculty Exhibition, Slusser Gallery, 2000 Bonisteel Blvd. 1st floor.

‘Nora’ and ‘Torvald’ both use the Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit.

Sample dialogue (when 2 people are sitting):

T: This time I needn’t sit here and be dull all alone. You have just come at a fortunate moment.
N: It’s wonderful! Wonderful things don’t happen every day. Take this armchair; I will sit here in the rocking-chair.
T: Has anyone been here?
N: What a thoughtless creature I am, chattering away like this.
T: You can depend on me.
N: It will make me so happy to be of some use to you.
T: Don’t disturb me. Look straight at me.
N: I am in a silly mood today. Come and sit down here, and I will show you something.
T: How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are. What sort of madness is this! Can you not understand your place in your own home?
N: What do you want of me? Have you been sitting here waiting for me?
T: I may as well tell you plainly, we were once on very intimate terms with one another.
N: You don’t understand me, and I have never understood you either.
T: Explain yourself better. I don’t understand you. Can I never be anything more than a stranger to you?
N: You must simply listen to what I say. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you.
T: You are right, it has affected us both. Something ugly has come between us. Where are you going?
N: Isn’t there one thing that strikes you as strange in our sitting here like this.
T: Here you shall stay and give me an explanation.
N: Does it not occur to you that this is the first time we two… have had a serious conversation?
T: On the contrary, I feel extraordinarily lively. And you? You really look both tired and sleepy.