Remnants of a Future Architecture, designed by Roland Snooks, with research and fabrication by RMIT Architecture | Tectonic Formation Lab, and FormX Technology, and supported by Eureka TechIn, and RMIT University School of Architecture and Urban Design, will be presented by Studio Roland Snooks at the Melbourne Design Fair.

Studio Roland Snooks was established in 2013 in Melbourne and explores the complexity of the contemporary social and natural world through the creation of objects, installations, public art, and architectural projects. This work draws on an understanding of the underlying processes of formation that give rise to these contemporary conditions. The studio redeploys these processes through algorithmic techniques in the creation of highly detailed and intricate forms.

FormX was founded by Nic Bao in 2019 affiliated with the Eureka International Group with the aim of developing intelligent construction solutions using 3D printing technology and innovative materials. Together with developers, architects, engineers, designers, builders, and researchers, the team provides design and manufacture services of high-quality 3D printed products, components, and architecture projects.

The exhibition is anchored by a major steel artefact, which explores the design implications, and development, of wire-arc additive manufacturing techniques, an emerging technology in development at the RMIT Architecture | Tectonic Formation Lab that uses industrial robots to 3D print steel. This is a fragment of a larger architectural speculation that explores the potential of robotic fabrication and intricate, heterogeneous structures. The work speculates on the architectural tectonics of the near future, its ruination, and its relationship to a broader set of emerging crises of the Anthropocene.