Automated Production: The Intersection of Digital Labour and Building Practice

Abstract

As approaches to computation in architecture are shifting from a new way of making towards a new way of thinking, the term ‘digital architecture’ must be reconsidered in order to find value in increasing computing power that is centered around communities and a reconsideration of labour, instead of neoliberal paradigms or postmodern principles. Automated Architecture Labs (AUAR) at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and the spinoff company Automated Architecture Ltd, argue that ‘digital architecture’ is not so much a paradigm as rather a collection of methods that fails to address fundamental issues in the contemporary built environment such as the construction industry’s slow digitisation and the field’s inclination to adopt automated technologies such as robotics without questioning work-flows. The paper discusses these issues through a politicised lens using two main concepts, the assembly problem and the automation gap, as starting points for a fundamental reconsideration around frameworks of digital labour. The authors argue that we must radically and creatively rethink our practice in order to formulate a new architectural politics and production framework that is capable of coping with increasing automation. By using discrete parts as the foundation of architectural platforms, the paper introduces a paradigm shift towards participatory community building and digital labour that instrumentalizes automated technologies for a democratising approach to the digital in which humans and machines complement each other.