Photo: Marielena Papandreou

GR-AI-N

Marielena Papandreou (GR)

Nomination

dare-make.com/research/gr-ai-n

We often view wood as a raw material for shaping our world. Yet our creations come from the sacrifice of a living organism. A tree is a living record of Earth’s climate, capturing every environmental variation within its growth rings. Regrettably, our production processes are designed not only to strip away their anatomy, their life’s tale, but also to discard nearly half of their potential. Is there a way to adapt our methods in order to waste less but also work with the tree’s story, weave it into the creations we make?

The GR-AI-N project seeks to harness the potential of discarded materials from the wood industry. This involves a type of digital craft that is grounded on computer vision and robotics. Post-scanning, AI-powered tools are employed to extract wood’s grain patterns, texture, imperfections. This data is used to enable unique designs that harmonize with the natural contours of the material. Each object is sculpted from a complex 3D mosaic of unique irregular pieces. The developed toolchain prioritizes waste mitigation, but also seeks to uncover the rich narratives embedded within trees by placing a strong emphasis on preserving the continuity of the wood grain in the designed objects.

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Credits

VOJEXT S+T+ARTS Art Residence 2: Robotics in Arts and Crafts received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Grant Agreement no.952197.
Residence led by VOJEXT PARTNERS: Robotnik and WAAG
Collaborative partner: Vincent Huyghe

With support from:
TMDC, an open-access workshop in Barcelona, offered space and manufacturing facilities.
IAAC in a generous gesture provided a UR10 for a preliminary testing of the scanning workflow before the mobile platform’s arrival in Barcelona.

Biographies

Marielena Papandreou (GR) is a designer, maker, researcher and educator, specializing in robotic manufacturing. She founded DARE, a hub for research and development around wood design and robotics in Barcelona. Her approach seeks to blend traditional craft methods and state-of-the-art digital tools for the creation of new, unique, environmentally conscious objects. She is a collaborator with the Institute of advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and was previously a lecturer in numerical manufacturing in the Bartlet School of Architecture, University College London (UCL).