Can architects contribute to the evolution of new tools and the construction systems used to make buildings? This lecture explores three emerging technologies and their design consequences.

Michael Silver teaches architecture at the University at Buffalo where he co-founded SMART, a multidisciplinary design community dedicated to the development of new ‘Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotic Technologies’. In collaboration with computer scientists and engineers, he continues to work at a variety of scales and has extensive experience in the production of furniture, digital construction systems and buildings. As an experimental collaborator, Michael is deeply committed to the precise alignment of advanced technology, critical theory, and architectural poetics. His work has been exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan, the IDC in Nagoya Japan, and the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. He built his first working robot arm out of Scotch tape and Spirograph parts at the age of 14.