Architectural Robotics: Unpacking the Humanoid

In most projections of intelligent environments, the design of the physical is neglected a bystander to progress. Researchers routinely explore, a posteriori, augmenting the underlying architectural morphology with suites of sensors, processors, and associated intelligence. Additionally, numerous researchers introduce intelligence into the environment via selfcontained mobile robots mostly humanoids. In this paper we offer an alternative vision in which the environmental design itself plays a more active role, assuming many of the tasks traditionally envisioned for robots (“unpacking the humanoid”). We discuss some implications of the adoption of this vision into the future, focusing on the ten-year window in the immediate future.