Festival Internazionale dell’Ingegneria

INTERNATIONAL
ENGINEERING
FESTIVAL

20 September 2025
Campus Leonardo
Politecnico di Milano

On the occasion of the International Engineering Festival at Politecnico di Milano, held on September 20, 2025 - INDEXLAB, in collaboration with Fanuc, Makita, and Alpewa, presented Tilegeist: an installation that explores new synergies between algorithmic design, collaborative robotics, and advanced fabrication techniques for contemporary architecture.

Tilegeist
Crafted by code, driven by climate

A project by INDEXLAB – Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with Fanuc, Makita, and Alpewa.

Tilegeist is an innovative façade system that integrates robotics, wood milling, and aluminum sheet bending to produce dynamic façade shingles capable of adapting to environmental conditions. Each shingle, composed of a milled wooden base clad in lightweight aluminum, is uniquely oriented through parametric design strategies to optimize thermal comfort and daylight control via surface gradients. The project falls within the broader cultural and technological context of algorithmic architecture, where the inclination of each element is determined by environmental data, such as solar paths and view corridors.

The fabrication process is semi-automated: machines, robots and Augmented Reality devices interpret the parametric model to cut, orient and place each component with continuously variable rotation and tilt angles. The core innovation lies in the assembly process, developed within ongoing research at INDEXLAB. Two pioneering methods are being tested: one employing augmented reality, where workers are guided by holographic digital twin instructions via Hololens devices; the other using a collaborative robotic system capable of force-sensitive insertion checks, real-time obstacle avoidance, and adaptive path planning based on configurable cost functions (e.g., smoothness, acceleration, speed).

By fostering a synergy between human labor and robotic precision, Tilegeist envisions a sustainable, inclusive future for digital construction, merging advanced manufacturing with expressive, climate-responsive architectural form.