Date of Award
Summer 8-20-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
September 2026
Department
Comparative Studies Program
College Granting Degree
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department Granting Degree
Comparative Studies
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Dustin White
Abstract
Computational design and robotic fabrication have expanded architecture’s capacity to coordinate geometry, material behavior, machine operation, and environmental performance. Yet many design-to-fabrication workflows remain structured by industrial logics of separation, standardization, and control. Design is often abstracted from material execution, fabrication is treated as a downstream phase, and robotic systems remain concentrated within specialized or proprietary infrastructures. This dissertation addresses this problem by proposing the design-to-fabrication continuum as an open, transferable, and ecologically situated framework in which computation mediates among design intent, matter, machine, environment, and shared technical knowledge.
The research uses a practice-based methodology combining computational workflow development, material experimentation, prototyping, robotic fabrication, environmental and structural simulation, workshops, documentation, and open-source dissemination. The framework is developed through four cumulative experimental workflows. A breathing modular wall translates principles of the Iranian windcatcher and qanat into a computational environmental system integrating modular geometry, airflow and solar analysis, and fabrication preprocessing. A topology-derived rib system combines mesh logic, adaptive kerfing, CNC fabrication, nesting, and assembly sequencing to produce bending-active structures through accessible two-dimensional manufacturing. An irregular-timber workflow integrates photogrammetry, digital cataloguing, computational joinery, structural feedback, calibration, and robotic milling to treat material variability as a productive design input. A situated robotic fabrication workflow connects scanning, direct mesh-to-toolpath modeling, non-planar dual-material deposition, robotic sequencing, and live machine feedback. Two interludes examine bounded morphogenesis and open-source robotic infrastructure as a technical commons.
The findings demonstrate that fabrication is not the execution of a completed design, but a negotiated and recursive process shaped by computational logic, material behavior, machinic constraints, ecological knowledge, and human participation. The dissertation contributes a methodological framework for developing, evaluating, documenting, and adapting open-source design-to-fabrication workflows. It concludes that computational robotic fabrication can contribute toward civic and ecological infrastructure when its methods remain intelligible, modifiable, and responsive to situated materials and resources. The continuum therefore redirects fabrication from centralized control and optimization toward accessibility, material accountability, adaptive feedback, and shared technical agency.
Recommended Citation
Urroz, Celso, "TOWARD DESIGN-TO-FABRICATION CONTINUUM FOR OPEN-SOURCE COMPUTATIONAL ROBOTIC ECOLOGIES IN THE POST-ANTHROPOGENIC ERA" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 434.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general/434