Via: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/

Nature provides us with impressive examples of animal construction: many species of termites build complex mounds several orders of magnitude larger than themselves. Yet the individual architects and engineers are small, expendable, and seem to operate with with little to no centralized supervision. Social termites provide an inspiration for the design of a swarm construction system, where many autonomous robots cooperatively build large-scale structures. Human construction traditionally involves direct human operation of tools and equipment, careful preplanning, and little or no true automation. Bringing automation to construction has the potential to improve measures like its speed and efficiency, as well as enabling construction in settings where it is difficult or dangerous for humans to work, e.g., disaster areas or extraterrestrial environments.

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Ultra Architects

Via: Judit Bellostes

The arrangement of the kindergarten’s space developed by Ultra Architects is based on the idea of putting the necessary auxiliary functions typical for activity rooms within a multifunctional piece of furniture. At the same time, it acts as a partition between the rooms and the corridor. The piece of furniture has been designed in such a way, so the children, as the main users, could have a direct access to as many shelves as possible (80%!). The fitment is equipped with a slide, secret passages, and hiding spots, so it can also be used as a playing facility.

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