This image showsSamuel Leder

Samuel Leder

Dr.-Ing.

Research Group Leader | Distributed Robotic Construction
2019 - current

Contact

+49 711 685 84513

Keplerstraße 11
79174 Stuttgart
Deutschland
Room: 10.23

Subject

Samuel Leder leads the research group Distributed Robotic Construction at the ICD where he is a post-doctoral researcher. His core interest lie in collective robotic construction and associated co-design methods related to their development. 

Publications:

  1. 2026

    1. Leder, S., Kim, H., Sitti, M., & Menges, A. (2026). Enhanced co-design of a collective robotic construction system for the assembly of in-plane timber structures. Proceedings of the 2nd German Robotic Conference, 677–679.
    2. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2026). Emergent Robotic Assembly Design: Embedding Structural Evaluation Into Agent-Based Modelling for Collective Robotic Construction. In M. Makki, J. Chen, S.-F. Nik Chien, J. Liu, L. Wang, & S.-Y. Wang (Eds.), HUMANISTIC COMPUTATION AND INTELLIGENCE - Proceedings of the 31st International Conference of the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) (Vol. 2, pp. 349–358).

  2. 2025

    1. Leder, S., Kubail Kalousdian, N., & Menges, A. (2025). Digital Twin for a Modular Collective Robotic Construction System [DaRUS]. https://doi.org/10.18419/DARUS-4761
    2. Castel, P., Sanei, S., Bulut, Y., Maierhofer, M., Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2025). Textile Tango: Shaping Soft Adaptive Spaces through Human Interaction. In G. A. Sorguç, K. Yemiþcioðlu, M. Akol, S. B. Erol, M. E. Bük, D. Güney, & B. Aktaþ Sulayýcý (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe 2025) (Vol. 2, pp. 651–660). https://papers.cumincad.org/data/works/att/ecaade2025_321.pdf
    3. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2025). Collective Robotic Construction (CRC) Research Projects organized by Architectural Design Approach. https://doi.org/10.18419/darus-4731
    4. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2025). Robotic Plans for the Assembly of A Large-Scale In-Plane Timber Prototype with a Collective Robotic Construction System. https://doi.org/10.18419/darus-4758
    5. Sun, X., Wu, C.-Y., Kragl, P., Skoury, L., Leder, S., Wortmann, T., & Menges, A. (2025). From Passive to Active Matter: A Novel Robot-Material System for Parallel Construction. In G. A. Sorguç, K. Yemiþcioðlu, M. Akol, S. B. Erol, M. E. Bük, D. Güney, & B. Aktaþ Sulayýcý (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe 2025) (Vol. 2, pp. 127–136). https://papers.cumincad.org/data/works/att/ecaade2025_449.pdf
    6. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2025). ABxM.DistributedRobotics.RP19: Agent-Based Models for a Modular Collective Robotic Construction System [DaRUS]. https://doi.org/10.18419/DARUS-4760

  3. 2024

    1. Eidner, F., Turean, A., Leder, S., Maierhofer, M., Schwinn, T., & Menges, A. (2024). Equilibrium Morphologies - Interactive modeling for form-finding of fabric structures. In O. Kontovourkis, M. C. Phocas, & G. Wurzer (Eds.), Data-Driven Intelligence - Proceedings of the 42nd Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe 2024) (Vol. 1, pp. 351–360). eCAADe.
    2. Leder, S., Kim, H., Sitti, M., & Menges, A. (2024). Enhanced co-design and evaluation of a collective robotic construction system for the assembly of large-scale in-plane timber structures. Automation in Construction, 162, 105390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2024.105390
    3. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2024). Merging architectural design and robotic planning using interactive agent-based modelling for collective robotic construction. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 11, Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcde/qwae028
    4. Leder, S., Siriwardena, L., Kragl, P., & Menges, A. (2024). Cyber-Physical Explorations of Collective Robotic Construction using Agent-Based Modelling. Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design 2024.
    5. Johnson, M., Kragl, P., Tucker, M., Leder, S., Kalousdian, N. K., & Menges, A. (2024). Differential Boundary Deposition: Towards Collective Robotic Construction with Amorphous Materials. Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design 2018.
    6. Koussa, R., Longo, L., Leder, S., Maierhofer, M., Sahin, E. S., & Menges, A. (2024). Discretised Match: Adaptive Assembly of Timber Components with Dimensional Variability. SIGraDi 2024 - Biodigital Intelligent Systems XXVIII International Conference of the Ibero-American Society for Digital Graphic, 1, 1247–1258. https://sigradi.org/sigradi2024/
    7. Zhang, P., Sevim, S., Leder, S., Maierhofer, M., Schwinn, T., & Menges, A. (2024). Multi-Robotic Maypole Braiding. In O. Kontovourkis, M. C. Phocas, & G. Wurzer (Eds.), Data-Driven Intelligence - Proceedings of the 42nd Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe 2024) (Vol. 1, pp. 137–146). eCAADe.
    8. Sardari, S., Sevim, S., Zhang, P., Ron, G., Leder, S., Menges, A., & Wortmann, T. (2024). Deep Agency - Towards human guided robotic training for assembly tasks in timber construction. In O. Kontovourkis, M. C. Phocas, & G. Wurzer (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe. Data-Driven Intelligence. (Vol. 1, pp. 193–202). eCAADe, University of Cyprus, Department of Architecture. https://papers.cumincad.org/data/works/att/ecaade2024_420.pdf

  4. 2023

    1. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2023). Introducing Agent-Based Modeling Methods for Designing Architectural Structures with Multiple Mobile Robotic Systems. In C. Gengnagel, O. Baverel, G. Betti, M. Popescu, M. R. Thomsen, & J. Wurm (Eds.), Towards Radical Regeneration (pp. 71–83). Springer International Publishing.
    2. Leder, S., & Menges, A. (2023). Architectural design in collective robotic construction. Automation in Construction, 156, 105082. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2023.105082

  5. 2022

    1. Stieler, D., Schwinn, T., Leder, S., Maierhofer, M., Kannenberg, F., & Menges, A. (2022). Agent-based modeling and simulation in architecture. Automation in Construction, 141, 104426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2022.104426
    2. Kubail Kalousdian, N., Lochnicki, G., Hartmann, V. N., Leder, S., Oguz, O. S., Menges, A., & Toussaint, M. (2022). Learning Robotic Manipulation of Natural Materials with Variable Properties for Construction Tasks. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2022.3159288
    3. Leder, S., Kim, H., Oguz, O. S., Kalousdian, N. K., Hartmann, V. N., Menges, A., Toussaint, M., & Sitti, M. (2022). Leveraging Building Material as Part of the In-Plane Robotic Kinematic System for Collective Construction. Advanced Science, 2201524. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202201524

  6. 2021

    1. Łochnicki, G., Kubail Kalousdian, N., Leder, S., Maierhofer, M., Wood, D., & Menges, A. (2021). Co-Designing Material-Robot Construction Behaviors: Teaching distributed robotic systems to leverage active bending for light-touch assembly of bamboo bundle structures. In B. Farahi, B. Bogosian, J. Scott, J. L. García del Castillo y López, K. Dörfler, J. A. Grant, S. Parascho, & V. A. A. Noel (Eds.), Realignments: Toward Critical Computation - ACADIA 2021.

  7. 2020

    1. Leder, S., Weber, R., Vasey, L., Yablonina, M., & Menges, A. (2020). Voxelcrete: Distributed Voxelized Adaptive Formwork. eCAADe Online 2020 – Architecture and Fabrication in the Cognitive Age Proceedings of the 38th eCAADe Conference 2020.
    2. Leder, S., Kim, H., Ozgur, O. S., Hartmann, V., Toussaint, M., Menges, A., & Sitti, M. (2020). Co-Design in Architecture: A Modular Material-Robot Kinematic Construction System. 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Proceedings of Workshop on Construction and Architecture Robotics.

  8. 2019

    1. Leder, S., Weber, R., Wood, D., Bucklin, O., & Menges, A. (2019). Distributed Robotic Timber Construction: Designing of in-situ timber construction system with robot-material collaboration. ACADIA – Ubiquity and Autonomy Proceedings of the ACADIA Conference 2019.

ITECH Design Studios:

ITECH MSc. Thesis Students:

ITECH Seminar Courses:

International Workshops Lead:

Sam is a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Intelligent Systems and the ICD. He will soon start the coordination of the European Innovation Council funded research project "COBRAS." He also leads the research group Distributed Robotic Construction at the ICD which is interested in the creation of bespoke distributed robotic systems for on-site construction. He is author of more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and lead numerous international workshops. Sam's work explores the co-design of the machines together with design of structure they assembly.  

He holds a Bachelor of Design in Architecture, summa cum laude, as well as a Bachelors of Applied Science in Systems Science and Engineering, magna cum laude, from Washington University in St. Louis. He received a Masters in Science in Architecture through the Integrative Technologies and Architectural Design Research (ITECH) program at the University of Stuttgart. During which he was a recipient of both German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Deutschlandstipendium. His Master’s thesis together with Ramon Weber was awarded a sonderpreis through the Hochschulpreis Holzbau 2019. He received her PhD degree as part of the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC) at the University of Stuttgart by completing a thesis entitled Co-Design of Collective Robotic Construction Systems in Architecture. 

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