S.A.R.E – Self Assembling Robotic Environments

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"I love fresh ideas about everything". Adriana Siso founded her contemporary industrial design store in 2002 in Santa Fe, NM. With a background in Fine Arts, Adriana has been an innovator, bringing to the Santa Fe area, original and unique industrial design products by some of the most creative design firms in the world.

The first design partners Molecule worked with were Vitra Design Museum, Moooi, Cherner Chair, and other well-known national and international brands. Today it partners with other world-class manufacturers like Vondom, Loll Designs and Moroso.

Molecule operated out of a recycled and renovated shipping container building, the first of its kind in Santa Fe. Currently Molecule is available through the online store and by appointment.

Sustainability is an important area of interest and ongoing exploration for Molecule, which offers product lines with a focus on conservation and ecological stewardship. A recent alliance with the Vertical Aeroponic Growing System – Tower Garden, promises to offer a lot of inspiration in the growing field of aeroponics as the future of agriculture, industrial design at its best.

By, Michael Jantzen

S.A.R.E is a conceptual design that explores ways in which artificial intelligence and robotics can be used to create new kinds of physical spaces. This particular design consists of one eight by eight by eight-foot box and one eight by eight by twelve-foot tall box. Each of the boxes has been divided into six vertical segments. Each of these segments is formed from a floor, wall, and roof component. Each of the roofs are fitted with solar cells. All of the floor components contain an electric motor, three wheels, and a battery. The batteries are kept charged by the solar cells mounted on the roofs. Each of the segments of the boxes are essentially robots that can independently move in any direction. Their movements are controlled by the integration of artificial intelligence into each of the robots in the form of programs, that tell each of them where to go in order to assemble, disassemble, and reassemble themselves into many different kinds of configurations.

robotic segments
Detail view of the tall and short robotic segments

These different kinds of configurations form many different kinds of interior and exterior spaces. The initial experiments with the Self-Assembling Robotic Environments will be based on pre-programmable instructions, but the hope is to develop the artificial intelligence to a point where the robots will begin to create their own environments without instructions form their human creators.

idea for robotic environments
The S.A.R.E. robotic segments begin to assemble into the two boxes
The tall box is now assembled and the short box is nearly assembled
Both of those segments move in opposite directions
robotic environments maquette
Now all 12 of the segments from the original tall box and the short box have reassembled into a new space, with many more configurations possible

Michael Jantzen is well known around the world as an artist and designer. His work has been featured in hundreds of articles in books, magazines, newspapers, and on the Web. His work has been published in newspapers like the LA Times, the New York Times, and magazines like Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and Wired. He has also been published in books like Architecture in the 20th Century, Architecture in the United States, the Atlas of Eco-architecture and Architecture Art.  His work has been shown in many galleries and on various TV documentaries. It has also been exhibited at the National Building Museum, the Canadian Center for Architecture, the Harvard School of Design and Architecture, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Most of his work merges art, architecture, technology, and sustainable design. Extreme innovation is his goal in everything he creates. Much of this innovation has been focused on the re-invention of the built environment, sculpture, and photography. Source: Archinect

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