Robert Stuart-Smith is the Director of the Masters of Science in Design: Robotics and Autonomous Systems program (MSD-RAS), Assistant Professor of Architecture, and Affiliate Faculty in Engineering's GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. He leads the Autonomous Manufacturing Lab in Penn's Department of Architecture and University College London's Department of Computer Science, managing over $5 million in government-funded research and collaborating with industry partners such as Cemex, Skanska, Mace, Burohappold, Arup, MTC, and Ultimaker. Stuart-Smith's research intersects design, computation, robotic fabrication, and collective robotic construction. His multidisciplinary Aerial Additive Manufacturing research, published in Nature, demonstrates the world's first in-flight additive manufacturing by cooperating drones. Integrating robotic manufacturing with architectural design, Stuart-Smith aims to address the environmental and economic costs of design and production while enhancing their cultural and aesthetic impacts. He co-directs Robert Stuart-Smith Design and co-founded Kokkugia in 2004, following his tenure at Arup, Grimshaw, and Lab Architecture Studio, where he contributed to 1.6 million SqFt and $1.7 billion of built work. Stuart-Smith has published in journals including Nature, Science Robotics, AD Architectural Design, and Architecture D'Aujourd'hui. His work is part of the permanent collection at Frac Centre-Val de Loire and has been exhibited at the Venice, Tallinn, Beijing and Prague Architecture Biennales, and Paris Lieu de Design. He has taught at AA, WashU, RMIT, and U.Innsbruck, and lectured at institutions including ETHZ, U.Stuttgart, MIT, CCA, Sci-Arc, AA, UCL Bartlett, RMIT, Angewandte, Strelka Institute, and Tsinghua University. His work has been featured by BBC Click, New Scientist, Smithsonian, Architizer, France 3, and others.
