M-Zero is BAI’s first workshop for architects who believe that technology is not an end in itself but a means to promote architectural excellence. During M-Zero, a large team of internationally renowned professors, lecturers, and engineers will train participants at programming a robot so that it can help designers in the creation of an inhabited space defined by criteria of innovation and robotization, but fit out with recognizable and largely replicable environmental qualities.

M-Zero is an introductory course to Workshop 1 of BAI’s Postgraduate Program, the objective of which is to create a research and practice environment that favors a creative interaction between architecture and industry through design. This module will provide students with intensive and specific training in the management of systems and tools linked to the new paradigm of ‘digital craftsmanship,’ from 3D printers to robotic arms, via computational design software and other industrialization, prefabrication, and executive control systems. The relationship with technology will not be approached from the simple adaptation or even submission to technique, but from the pragmatic and ethical control of technique through architecture. The fundamental question is, how can we harness the potential of new technologies from and for design, with the goal of improving people’s lives?

Andrea Deplazes, Full Professor at ETH Zürich and BAI Academic Director, will be the personal mentor of the projects developed by the workshop’s students. Through a direct and fruitful dialogue with the professor, participants will become familiar with the process of installing, programming, setting up, and operating robotic arms, while learning about the potential of new technologies in the development of quality contemporary projects. In the first edition of M-Zero, wood will be the primary working material: its performance, formal, and geometric possibilities, its constructive possibilities, and its environmental behavior will all be the subject of study. Wood, together with new technologies in computational design and digital manufacturing, will form the basis for the development of space prototypes throughout two four-day intensive blocks.

The workshop will be held in a unique historical setting: the Sala de Armas (Arms Room) of the Citadel of Pamplona. This place, built in the 19th century, will be the stage for the discussion on the innovative, transformative, and social ideas underlying the BAI project. The students’ work will be displayed, afterwards, at the first BAI Symposium, taking place from 19 to 21 November in Pamplona. Attendance to M-Zero and the I BAI Symposium involves the official recognition of participants as BAI Postgraduate students and the corresponding credit recognition in Workshop 1 of the BAI Postgraduate Program, dedicated to Design-Innovation-New Technologies.

KEY DATA

Program:
M-Zero/Workshop 1: 21-24 October 2025, Sala de Armas (Arms Room) of the Citadel of Pamplona.

Participants will become acquainted with computational design and robotic manufacturing through the development of an architecture exercise taught by professor Andrea Deplazes.

Professors:
Andrea Deplazes, ETH Zürich Professor and BAI Academic Director.
Jonathan Benhamu, BAI Research Associate.
Jesús Medina, architect specialist in robotic construction at ETH Zürich and professor at BAI.

Maximum number of students:
20

Registration:
Scholarships covering the whole cost of the course will be awarded. Interested parties should apply for registration at programabai@bai-institute.es by 30 September.

Credit recognition:
The participation in the course involves the recognition of the credits of the first semester of Workshop 1 (Design-Innovation-New Technologies) of the BAI Postgraduate Program, and the recognition of the participants as official BAI students.

BAI Program of Activities