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Could automation turn architecture into a more accessible, mass‐produceable cultural project? Guest‐Editor Gilles Retsin recounts some experiments in this direction from the B‐Pro Research Cluster 4 that he co‐directs at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, as well as from his private practice. Customisation here occurs in the assembly rather than in the building blocks themselves, with building syntax reduced to a small number of distinct elements, and resolution varying widely between projects. Design, rather than robotics, remains key.

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The paper will discuss two projects which explore the territory of discrete or digital material organisations in an architectural context. Taking inspiration from the field of Digital Materials, this paper presents an approach to architectural design which is fundamentally "digital" -not just in the process but also in its physical organisation. The use of discrete and digital materials in architecture is argued for from both an architectonic point of view, as well as from efficiencies related to automation of construction. Experiments with robotic assembly are caught between on the one hand the desire to increase speed, and on the other hand increased complexity. This paper argues that robotic assembly on the scale of architecture is only feasible and scalable in the context of digital materials and discrete computation, which has a limited set of connectivity problems. The two projects are a first attempt to translate the concept of Digital Materials to the domain of architecture. The result is an architecture which is digital in its physical organisation. It demonstrates how differentiated, complex and heterogeneous spaces can be achieved with just serialised, discrete elements.