HSLU Digital Construction at Politecnico di Milano

This week we welcomed Samuel Ackermann and Juri Jerg from the Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture (HSLU), Switzerland, who delivered a class to the Master’s students of the Laboratorio di Advanced Manufacturing e Circular Design, led by Prof Ornella Iuorio in the MSc Building Engineering for Sustainability at Politecnico di Milano.

The lab gives students a grounding in circular design for architecture and construction, from reuse and remanufacturing strategies to deconstruction, urban mining and the design of disassemblable building components. Alongside the theory, students build practical skills in parametric modelling, reverse engineering, 3D printing, robotic assembly and prototyping. The HSLU session focused on that last area, showing how a digital design can be carried through to a physical result by a robot.

Samuel and Juri brought HSLU’s mobile Digital Construction workbench to Milan. The self-contained unit carries a collaborative robot, BERT, mounted beside a working surface, and it can be wheeled into a classroom and set up without a dedicated robotic cell. For the class, the robot was fitted with a custom 3D-printed end effector that holds a pen.

The session began with a robotic drawing demonstration. BERT traced layered contour linework onto black paper, showing how geometry modelled on screen becomes a sequence of robot targets and movements. Students then got hands-on with the robot themselves. They generated their own geometry, turned it into toolpaths and watched BERT draw them out.

Drawing is a simple, safe way into robotics, but it uses the same steps as robotic fabrication and assembly: defining tool and work frames, calibrating against the physical setup, planning paths and checking reach and collisions. Working directly with a collaborative robot gave students a practical feel for these workflows, which they can now carry into their own design and prototyping projects in the lab.

The visit also connects with our Erasmus+ project DIGI MATTERS, which develops digital design and robotic fabrication education across Europe through shared resources, workshops and exchanges between institutions. Many thanks to Samuel and Juri for making the trip and sharing their expertise with our students!

Part of our Advanced Manufacturing track.