Computational Tectonics Lab: computation, robotic fabrication, and living materials for a regenerative built environment

The Computational Tectonics Lab (CT Lab), founded in 2022 at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, develops computation, robotic fabrication, and living and circular materials as a single, connected response to the climate and resource pressures on the built environment. Rather than treat design, making, and material behavior as separate stages, the lab works through computational tectonics, a loop that binds what a material can do, how it is fabricated, and how it performs in place. Agent-based and generative design computation drive this loop, and every proposition is carried from small material samples to architectural-scale prototypes so that it is tested against physical evidence.

The lab organizes its research through three interconnected streams:

Computationally Driven Material Ecologies: agent-based and generative computation, simulation, and toolpath planning that tune fabrication parameters and material behavior, including graded material placement, raster orientation, and non-planar robotic printing.

Circular Robotic Fabrication for Performance: circular-economy workflows that translate human parameters and waste-derived and bio-mediated feedstocks into constructible, repairable, and resource-aware prototypes.

Living and Regenerative Architectures: soil- and bio-based printing inks and nutrient-calibrated substrates that support plant and mycelium growth, moving the design frame beyond anthropocentric tectonics toward multispecies design.

This work takes concrete form in the lab’s projects: Myco-Shell, a mycelium-mineral composite realized as cladding panels, which led to a University of Virginia provisional patent application (2026; title and details confidential); Axisymmetric Column No. 1, a self-supporting thin-shell column produced by non-planar robotic printing beyond the robot’s fixed workspace; robotically 3D-printed living-soil wall prototypes with embedded vegetation; and Chair No. 7, a robotically printed chair in bio-based polymer. This research has been published in peer-reviewed venues and exhibited internationally, including at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale (French Pavilion, 2025) and the 6th Chicago Architecture Biennial (2025 to 2026).

Directed by Dr.-Ing. Ehsan Baharlou, the lab brings together graduate researchers from architecture and engineering and works with colleagues in materials science, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and civil engineering at the University of Virginia. Its research has been supported by University of Virginia programs including the 3 Cavaliers Program, the Jefferson Trust, the Environmental Institute, and the Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation. The lab welcomes inquiries from prospective graduate researchers and from collaborators across disciplines.