VISION
VISION
VISION
In 1960, Doug Engelbart pioneered human-computer interaction with groundbreaking tools like the computer mouse, videoconferencing, and interactive visualizations. This work culminated in "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968, where Engelbart demonstrated these innovations live, transforming the conference space into an interactive interface where humans and machines communicated in real time through layered projections, sound, and remote participation. Since then, technology has advanced dramatically, and many interaction techniques once considered experimental are now routine. Yet the broader space Engelbart helped point to-how we should structure human–machine collaboration, distribute agency, and design interaction as a shared, evolving system-remains far from fully explored. Despite today’s powerful hardware and software, many foundational questions about collaborative reasoning, attention, and embodied participation in mixed human–machine environments are still open, and the field’s most ambitious interaction paradigms are only beginning to take shape.
These questions are also inherently spatial and material, making them central to architecture, engineering, and construction. Here, interaction is not only confined to interfaces on a screen. It is enacted through bodies moving in space, tools engaging with materials, and machines operating within dynamic environments. Designing in this context means translating intent into geometry, geometry into fabrication action, and physical feedback back into digital models—often in real time and in real construction environments. As a result, themes such as digital craft, human–machine interaction, and the translation between physical and digital systems demand new design processes and new forms of spatial interaction, where extended reality environments intersect with augmented humans, robotic and automated systems.
For this reason, the Architecture and Human Augmentation research group investigates these challenges through a spatial lense, with a focus on how humans and machines can mutually augment one another -technically, perceptually, and operationally - across design, fabrication, and the experience of spaces.
TEAM
Fabio Scotto
STUDENTS:
Alexandra Moisi (ETH Zurich, PhD Second advisor, Architecture)
Norah Smith (Princeton ’26, Bachelor Thesis advisor, Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Emily Yang (Princeton ’25, Bachelor Thesis advisor, Electrical and Computer Engineering)
FORMER TEAM MEMBERS:
Lidia Atanasova (PhD researcher in residence 2024)
Kirill Volchinskiy (student assistant)
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2025
- Loom-Based Mechanized Crochet.
Poster session of the ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication. Smith, N., Mitterberger, D., Adriaenssens, S. 2025. PDF
Interactive Digital Twins: Integrating XR and Motion Capture for Timber Assembly. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication.
Moisi, A., Kenny, J.K., Bucklin, O., Aejmelaeus-Lindström, P., Kango, A., Casas G., Mitterberger, D., Gramazio, F., and Kohler, M. 2025. PDF
Immersive Conservation: Interactive Tools for Preserving Built Heritage. in 15th International Congress on the Deterioration and Conservation of Stone Patankar, Y., Mitterberger, D., Bomou, B., Flatt, R. J.
PDF
Towards AIXR: Designing a Framework for AI-Informed Human-Robot Collaborative Assembly of Nonuniform Material in Extended Reality in CAAD Futures 2025, (2025). Del Campo, M., Kenny, J., Alexi, E., Manninger, S., Mitterberger, D. https://doi.org/10.25442/hku.29365481 LINK
Building (with) human–robot teams: fabrication-aware design, planning, and coordination of cooperative assembly processes in Constr Robot 9, 2 (2025). Atanasova, L., Kenny, J., Alexi, E., Chovgi, F., Mitterberger, D., Doerfler, K. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41693-025-00158-w LINK PDF
Heritage ++, a Spatial Computing approach to Heritage Conservation in RILEM Tech Lett 2025, 9, 50-60. Patankar , Y.; Tennenini, C.; Bischof, R.; Khatri, I.; Maia Avelino, R.;Yang, W.; Mahamaliyev, N.; Scotto, F.; Mitterberger, D.; Bickel, B.; Girardet, F.; Amsler, C.; Bomou, B.; J. Flatt https://doi.org/10.21809/rilemtechlett.2024.202 LINK PDF
2024
Poster session of the ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication. Smith, N., Mitterberger, D., Adriaenssens, S. 2025. PDF
Interactive Digital Twins: Integrating XR and Motion Capture for Timber Assembly. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication. Moisi, A., Kenny, J.K., Bucklin, O., Aejmelaeus-Lindström, P., Kango, A., Casas G., Mitterberger, D., Gramazio, F., and Kohler, M. 2025. PDF
Immersive Conservation: Interactive Tools for Preserving Built Heritage. in 15th International Congress on the Deterioration and Conservation of Stone Patankar, Y., Mitterberger, D., Bomou, B., Flatt, R. J.
Towards AIXR: Designing a Framework for AI-Informed Human-Robot Collaborative Assembly of Nonuniform Material in Extended Reality in CAAD Futures 2025, (2025). Del Campo, M., Kenny, J., Alexi, E., Manninger, S., Mitterberger, D. https://doi.org/10.25442/hku.29365481 LINK
Building (with) human–robot teams: fabrication-aware design, planning, and coordination of cooperative assembly processes in Constr Robot 9, 2 (2025). Atanasova, L., Kenny, J., Alexi, E., Chovgi, F., Mitterberger, D., Doerfler, K. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41693-025-00158-w LINK PDF
Heritage ++, a Spatial Computing approach to Heritage Conservation in RILEM Tech Lett 2025, 9, 50-60. Patankar , Y.; Tennenini, C.; Bischof, R.; Khatri, I.; Maia Avelino, R.;Yang, W.; Mahamaliyev, N.; Scotto, F.; Mitterberger, D.; Bickel, B.; Girardet, F.; Amsler, C.; Bomou, B.; J. Flatt https://doi.org/10.21809/rilemtechlett.2024.202 LINK PDF
Cooperative Augmented Assembly (CAA): Augmented Reality for On-Site Cooperative Robotic Fabrication in Constr Robot 8, 28 (2024).
Vasiliki, E., Kenny, J., Atanasova, L., Doerfler, K., Casas, G., Mitterberger, D.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41693-024-00138-6
LINK PDF
- Rethinking Digital Construction: A Collaborative Future of Humans, Machines and Craft
in Architectural Design (2024).
Mitterberger, D. and Doerfler, K.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.3103
LINK PDF
2023
- Augmented Human & Extended Machine: Adaptive Digital Fabrication and Human-machine Collaboration for Architecture
Mitterberger, D.
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000626069
LINK PDF
- Robotic on-site adaptive thin-layer printing: Challenges and workflow for design and fabrication of bespoke cementitious plasterwork at full architectural scale
in Archit. Struct. Constr. 3, 145- 156 (2023).
Ercan Jenny, S., Mitterberger, D., Lloret- Fritschi, E. et al.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44150-022-00062-9
LINK PDF
2022
- Tie a knot: human–robot cooperative workflow for assembling wooden structures using rope joints
in Constr. Robotics 6, 277–292 (2022).
Mitterberger, D., Atanasova, L., Dörfler, K., Gramazio, F. and Kohler M.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41693-022-00083-2
LINK PDF
- Degrees of Life: Human-Bacteria Interaction in Architectural Space
Winner best project
in ACADIA - Hybrids & Haecceities (2022).
Mitterberger, D. and Derme, T.
PDF
- Augmented human, extended machine: extended reality systems for robotic fabrication in architecture, engineering, and construction
in ACM XRDS (2022).
Mitterberger, D.
https://doi. org/10.1145/3558196
LINK PDF
- Interactive Robotic Plastering: Augmented Interactive Design and Fabrication for On-site Robotic Plastering
Honorable mention
in CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 174.
Mitterberger, D., Ercan Jenny, S., Vasey, L., et al.
https:// doi.org/10.1145/3491102.35018
LINK PDF
- Extended Reality Collaboration: Virtual and mixed reality system for collaborative design and holographic-assisted on-site fabrication
in Design Modeling Symbosium 2022.
Mitterberger, D., Angelaki, E., Salveridou, F., et al.
https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-031-13249-0_24
LINK PDF
- Co-Corporeality of Humans, Machines, & Microbes
in Birkhäuser.
Imhof, B., Mitterberger, D. and Derme, T.
https://doi. org/10.1515/9783035625882
LINK PDF