Blueprints Not Required

JUST AS TERMITES BUILD castles on Earth, robots could erect skyscrapers on the moon. Francois Roche is a French architect who is exploring what happens when traditional design constraints are allowed to fall away.

Roche imagines a programmable assembly device dubbed the "viab," a construction robot capable of improvising as it assembles walls, ducts, cables and pipes.

A viab would produce structures that do not follow blueprints. The viab would have no innate design, boundaries, or service life. It would take whatever form was called for at the moment, like a human habitat, and build something unplanned, responsive, densely monitored, massively customized, and rock-solid, will all modern conveniences.

For more information, read the full article in WIRED Magazine, An Architect's Wet-Cement Dream.

Quote by Bruce Sterling, WIRED Magazine: "The moon or Mars would be a natural venue for the concept, a place too hostile for mankind, where viabs could work around the clock: Let robots spit out a city, then settle in when it's ready."