Architecture students apply AR technology to wood manufacturing with FabCafe Tokyo and FabCafe Hida

In 2018 and 2019, UB architecture professor Nicholas Bruscia partnered with the office of FabCafe Tokyo, a product design innovation lab, to bring students to the Hida province of Gifa, Japan, where they worked hand-in-hand with local craftspeople to explore the region’s history of carpentry and craft.

When COVID-related travel restrictions forced the studio to host its next phase in Buffalo, Brusica and his collaborators at FabCafe turned it into an opportunity. Using the MArch graduate research studio as their platform, Bruscia and his students shifted the research into an exploration of Augmented Reality (AR) and 3D for remote design and fabrication systems with wood.

Throughout the Spring 2022 semester, students sent 3D models to the local carpenters and lumber mill operators, who then used HoloLens to project them onto large tree logs during the chainsaw cutting, hand carving, and assembling phase. The local logs used grow into odd shapes due to snow loads and are typically turned to wood chips or fuel since they cannot fit into standardized sawmilling operations.

Through a trial-and-error process, the team identified the difficulties, as well as the potential, of using AR and 3D technologies to utilize the bent logs for architectural design.