AT THE CUTTING EDGE:
FIU | CARTA Robotics + Digital Fabrication + Visualization Lab
Winners have been announced in the competition to design a new FIU CARTA Robotics, Digital Fabrication, and Visualization Lab:
First Place Team: Rayni Kovacs + Ricardo Henriques
Second Place Team: Kevin Redolta + Julio Martelo
Third Place Team: Monica Chan + Joyce Alonso
Graduate Design 10 students in the studios of Professors Jaime Canaves, Claudia Busch and John Stuart participated in a fast-paced, two-stage design competition, challenging them to propose a new CARTA Robotics, Digital Fabrication and Visualization Lab, to be constructed on the Paul L. Cejas Architecture complex at FIU Modesto Maidique Campus. The approximately 7,000 SF lab is intended to support state-of-the-art student and faculty research and innovation, while showcasing the newest CARTA technology investments. Embracing both its location in South Florida, a geographic epicenter of climate vulnerability, and its position in the heart of one of the nation’s largest public research universities, the new Robotics Lab is also intended to serve as a demonstration project for 21st century resilience in building construction.
The student teams designed a lab to support FIU students and faculty as they employ robotic automation, digital fabrication, and new sensor-guided manufacturing processes at a broad range of material scales. Incorporating the immersive interactive capabilities of the FIU ICAVE [Integrated Computer Augmented Virtual Environment], as well as new capacities in virtual, augmented and mixed-reality technology, the proposals were designed to support new ways of visualizing and making. Taken in conjunction with the FIU Solar House, designed and built by CARTA and COE students and faculty, competitions were asked to imagine the new Robotics Lab as a critical part of the learning and research resources available to FIU-CARTA students.
