Robotic Fabrication of Bamboo Roof Structures in Traditional Indonesian Housing Typologies: A Workflow for Human-Robot Collaboration

Traditional bamboo roof structures are a substantial element of Indonesia’s vernacular architecture and cultural identity. Integrating bamboo into computational design and robotic fabrication presents challenges due to inherent material heterogeneity, non-uniform properties, and reliance on human & traditional craftsmanship. This study explores the incorporation of robotic fabrication in bamboo construction and examines the opportunities and challenges of its human-robot collaboration (HRC) adoption. To answer these, we propose an HRC workflow in three stages, including parametric design and optimisation of double-curved hyperbolic paraboloid bamboo surface structures, the development of an adaptive customised joinery system and robotic assembly with adaptive end-effector grippers for handling, placing, holding, and bending bamboo rods in HRC. We evaluate the workflow by assembling a scaled traditional bamboo roof prototype (1/4 scale) and testing how robotic fabrication addresses material challenges and demonstrates improved assembly precision. In addition, we analyse how the adaptive and tailored joint system impacts bamboo active-bending behaviour during robotic assembly. Our findings reveal the strengths and constraints of the approach and offer insights into the intuitive interaction between humans and robots to advance bamboo construction. This research bridges traditional craftsmanship and automated fabrication for contemporary bamboo architecture applications.