autonomous builders collective

Collaborators / 2026 +..

Marcus Shaffer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 2008. His research interest is The Machine in an Architectural context, including tectonic machines that realize built works and cultural/ritual machines designed to infuse space with spectacle and wonder. He is currently developing machines that construct earthen architectures at 1:1 scale. His forthcoming book (with Dr. Elizabeth Andrzejewski), Konrad Wachsman’s Architecture Machine, details and situates Wachsman’s Location Orientation Manipulator as a prescient semi-autonomous architectural assembler. 

https://www.instagram.com/m_w_five/ 

Mahan Motalebi is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University where his research examines earthen materials and construction at the intersection of architectural design and environmental practice. His work investigates how vernacular building typologies encode ecological knowledge, and how that knowledge can inform contemporary architectural strategies for a more regenerative relationship between the built and natural environments.

https://mahanmotalebi.wixsite.com/mahanmotalebi 

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Tiffanie Leung is a doctoral researcher at the Pennsylvania State University and an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Architecture. She has been named a PSU College of Arts and Architecture Sustainability Fellow, and an Engineering for Change Research Fellow. She has also served as a "Maker in Residence" at the PSU Learning Factory, where she taught students how to recycle post-consumer textiles with sewing machine craft instruction. Tiffanie's developmental work with earthbag construction includes explorations of bag geometries and size in relation to accessibility, and employing post-consumer textile waste in earthbag construction.

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Contributors / 2026+..

Dr. Jerzy Łątka is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Architecture at Penn State this year, and co-taught the Cellulose-Shelter Directed Research Studio with Marcus Shaffer during the spring semester. Jerzy is a prominent Polish architect and scientist at the Faculty of Architecture at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, where he specializes in the innovative use of paper and cardboard as sustainable structural materials. He is recognized globally for his pioneering research in emergency, temporary, and disaster-relief architecture...

Foundational Contributors..

Esmael Maalej graduated from Penn State Architecture in 2024 with a B.Arch, and in 2025 he completed his MS Arch. His research with ABC Lab focused on the development of an alternative bent wood lamination methodology that projected bent wood beyond the limitations of single-use two-part molds. Esmael's research in alternative technologies developed through jig design, resulting in a parametric system with the ability to produce a variety of wooden geometries or “bent lines” using a modular form. The jig (made of cnc’d plywood parts) facilitates a range of bent wood production, from small-scale, low-tech benchtop work to larger, robotically assisted industrial wood construction. His work is situated at the intersection of accessible and re-usable formwork tooling, advancements in scalable timber construction, and new architectural technologies.

https://www.instagram.com/maalej.design/

Dr. Elizabeth 'Lizz' Andrzejewski received her PhD from Penn State Architecture in 2024, and is currently a member of the Architecture faculty at Marywood University. Lizz researches historical and contemporary architectural manufacturing and construction automation through a dialog between theory and fabrication. She is currently developing an Automated Building Machine, ABM, as informed by a focused study of the architect and engineer Konrad Wachsmann. In 2018 she was a Summer Bauhaus Lab Scholar which resulted in the publication, The Art of Joining: Designing the Universal Connector. Her latest book, Konrad Wachsmann's Architecture Machine: The Location Orientation Manipulator (with Marcus Shaffer) will be published by Birkhäuser in 2026.

https://www.marywood.edu/people/bio?id=eandrzejewski@marywood.edu

Dr. Julio Diarte Almada received his PhD from Penn State Architecture in 2021 as a Fulbright scholar, and is currently a member of the Architecture faculty at Umeå University in Sweden. While at Penn State Julio did extensive research on using post-consumer cardboard as a building material. His work strategically employed a variety of fabrication/crafting methods that ranged from low-tech folding/rolling, to hi-tech digital sensing and robotic scoring in producing experimental cardboard building elements. His work with waste materials continues at Umeå, where he directs The Material Practices Lab:

https://www.umu.se/en/research/projects/the-material-practices-lab-/

Connor Pritz graduated from Penn State Architecture in 2016 with a Masters of Science in Architecture degree (MS Arch). Connor's thesis work, Machine / Block / Vault, explored the adaptation of Nubian vaulting techniques in creating a keyed, mortarless compressed earth block that could produce earthen vaults. In developing the block, he invented associated compression dies, and prototyped a modified earth block press at 1:1 scale. Connor is currently a practicing architect with Studio 6mm in Philadelphia.

https://studio6mm.com/people   

Zoe Bick graduated from Penn State Architecture in 2016 with a Masters of Science in Architecture degree (MS Arch). While at Penn State Zoe explored a connection between rammed earth construction and a deficit in tooling/machine development that might make rammed earth less accessible to would-be earthen builders. In response, Zoe developed and prototyped three earth ramming machines at 1:1 scale, and tested them in earthen building production: Monument, Mass, and Needle. 

Aaron Wertman graduated from Penn State Architecture in 2015 with a Masters of Science in Architecture degree (MS Arch). His B Arch and MS Arch thesis work - Apparatus X: Activating the Activist Architect - was a foundational project that served as a nucleus in the formation of ABC. Aaron questioned how architects could use tools and machines to engage with people who wanted to build for themselves, and he prototyped his ideas at 1:1 scale - empirically working at what a design might become rather than fabricating something predetermined. 

Dr. Elena Vazquez Peña received her PhD from Penn State Architecture in 2022. Elena's computational work with post-consumer cardboard, and in creating "noisy" block forms using a robot and a pin mold, were foundational projects in the early days of the ABC Lab. Elena was also instrumental in producing ABC Lab work that was exhibited at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in 2021. Dr. Vazquez Peña is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Umeå University, where she heads the Digital Materials research group:

https://www.umu.se/en/research/groups/digital-materials/