What if soft robotic skin could heal, shift, and adapt like an X-Men mutant?
A fieldbook on human participation, textile structures,
robotic fabrication and the possibilities of living matter.
Move through
the fieldbook.
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Invent a future.
Make it human.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”Alan Kay · Computer History Museum, 2023 [1]
Innovation changes the world when it changes what people are able to do. My work begins with a simple question: what if a community’s voice could become something we can touch, test, repair and build together?
From participatory AI to robotic fabrication, I am interested in the passage between an intention and a physical thing. Fabricademy is where I bring that question into textiles, soft systems and biomaterials: learning how materials behave, how structures are made, and how people can remain part of every decision.
Four threads.
One living question.
Ideas that shape my practice—from the grammar of parts to the intelligence of materials.
Lawrence
“Larry” Sass
Machines as intelligent assistants.
“There will come a day when computers and robots will participate regularly in designing, fabricating, and delivering homes as customized kits of parts (Sass 2008). They will not replace builders. Instead, one possible future is where computers and robots operate as intelligent assistants, discovering, reasoning, and inferring the best solutions using large language models (LLMs).”
His physical grammar connects geometric rules, fabrication and assembly. It inspires my effort to make human–AI design decisions traceable from a spoken intention to a buildable part.
Plane Delivery · Sass, 2025, p. 31 [2]The quoted passage is from the 2025 article; Sass 2008 is a citation within it.Singh
Intrachooto
Waste is a starting point.
Intrachooto’s sustainability practice connects research, material recovery and useful products. RISC documents his work on recycled concrete, recycled plastic roads and upcycled paving as practical contributions to environmental and community wellbeing.
My material experiments at Scrap Lab—with coffee-ground extrusion and textile baskets—connect this outlook to making: begin with what is discarded, understand its behaviour, then design a responsible next life.
RISC · Sustainability Award, 2022 [3]Research interpretation and personal reflection; not a verbatim quotation.Mariana
Popescu
A textile can give structure its form.
KnitCandela demonstrates how computational knitting becomes lightweight formwork for a concrete shell. Knitted pockets, cables and geometry work together as a construction system, expanding textiles beyond a surface finish.
For my research, this opens a question: can textile geometry become an active interface between fabrication, transformation and human use? The concrete shell carries the finished structure; the textile’s formwork role is the essential distinction.
KnitCandela · Popescu, project 2018 [4]Interpretation of the project and its published technical account; not a direct quote.Skylar
Tibbits
Build the behaviour into the material.
The Self-Assembly Lab’s programmable materials include printed wood grain and textile composites designed to change shape. Material composition and fabrication encode a response, bringing movement into the material itself.
This inspires my exploration of bio-based materials and adaptive fabrication. Living or self-healing robotic skin remains my research ambition—not a demonstrated outcome of the cited project.
Programmable Materials · Self-Assembly Lab [5]Bio-based matter, programmable matter and living matter are related research directions, not interchangeable terms.Original inspiration sketch note
The original inspiration sketch file was empty in the upload package, so it is not displayed here. Add the final image back at docs/images/editorial/fabricademy-03.jpg when the source artwork is available.
What if a skin
could learn to adapt?
Textile. Bio-material. Fabrication. Human in the loop.
I am exploring how participatory input can inform a transformable textile system: translating intentions into geometry, testing material behaviour, fabricating prototypes, and returning observations to human review. Healing, movement and adaptation are questions to investigate through experiments.
Explore the final project
From voices
to physical grammar.
Before fabrication: interpret intentions and constraints. During fabrication: translate, assemble and inspect. After fabrication: observe use, invite feedback and revise. A continuous loop connects social meaning with material performance.
Open the framework image to inspect the original diagram. This is a research framework, not evidence that every proposed capability has been validated.
Technology made legible, physical and accountable.
Pam (Prapawit) Intun is a creative technologist and AI & robotics researcher working at the intersection of computer vision, large language models, augmented reality, robotics, design and fabrication. A Silicon Valley Fellow, she builds LLM and edge-AI systems that turn unstructured human input into machine-executable output, moving fluidly among academic research, industry and hands-on client practice.
She founded Layerminds.AI and Participatory Citizen Lab. Her AI-assisted permitting solution was selected for the Council on Environmental Quality’s Permitting Innovators Solutions Catalog; features she developed were also selected by OpenAI for its Builder Lounge at New York Tech Week and OpenAI DevDay 2026.
Digital participation for community-led public space.
Prapawit developed LocalLoop, a participatory AI platform that translates residents’ text, voice, drawings and situated knowledge into design inputs that communities can inspect, discuss and revise. First developed through work in Bangkok, the project connects civic participation with generative systems while keeping human judgment visible throughout the process.
LocalLoopBKK: a participatory AI tool for community-led public space design in Bangkok.
Read the principal international feature and project overview.
Systems, interfaces and research in practice.
A visual record of selected work spanning multimodal interaction, spatial computing, participatory AI, architecture, heritage intelligence and civic systems.
Eight years of participation, translated into infrastructure.
With more than eight years of experience in public participation, Prapawit founded LocalLoop, an LLM platform for community-led design piloted across 77 Thai cities and five U.S. cities in more than eight languages. It received the Global Grand Award and Sustainability Leadership Award at the International Sustainable Design Awards 2026 in Hong Kong and was named to TIME’s Best Inventions 2026.
She won Best Use of Arduino App Lab for Hardware Hack, sponsored by Qualcomm, at Reality Hack @ MIT 2026, and received an Honorable Mention at the NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2025.
Across computation, architecture and social systems.
Her work has been exhibited at the Seattle Design Festival, New York Tech Week, Climate Tech Crossing, the Harvard XR Conference at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and in Singapore, with an upcoming showing at SXSW 2027.
She has authored more than five peer-reviewed publications, including work with ACADIA, the International Journal of Architectural Computing, the International Journal of Advances in Signal and Image Sciences, The Princeton Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, the Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, and the International Multidisciplinary Conference on Current Research Trends. She also serves as an invited reviewer for two Q1 journals.
Academic depth grounded in public service.
Her research is fully funded by Thailand’s highly competitive White Elephant Scholarship and the C2F Research Fellowship at Chulalongkorn University. Her nonprofit work has been supported by the Society of Young Social Innovators (SYSI), the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, AIDS Access and SHMA.
As a volunteer designer for Choduk Community Park, she contributed to a project that received the Monocle Design Award for Best for Kids in 2022.
Her bachelor’s thesis, Space of Flow, received the Bronze Prize at the Asia Young Designer Awards, Thesis of the Year by national popular vote, and a shortlist recognition from UniADA ’22 among leading international graduation projects. She graduated valedictorian with First-Class Honors and a Gold Medal conferred by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.
Her master’s thesis on digital public participation was presented at the MIT Media Lab GenAI Design Workshop 2025. Through MIT Professional Education, she is pursuing a Professional Certificate in Innovation and Technology at MIT.
Keep the human in command.
Prapawit is developing an AI safety and governance framework for the architectural profession in Southeast Asia, intended for proposal to the United Nations and the Architectural Association. The work keeps AI systems subordinate to human judgment at critical decision points and examines how architects can collaborate with advanced technology through ethics, intellectual rigor and reflective practice. This research has garnered recognition from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Research that moves from model to matter.
At Scrap Lab, founded by Singh Intrachooto, she pursued material research by developing coffee-ground extrusion lines and textile baskets while learning to produce both machines and bio-materials.
As a Research Associate in the Architectural Intelligence Research Group at Chulalongkorn University, she applies machine learning to architectural heritage and soft robotics in partnership with Kyoto University. Her practice extends into biotechnology and living materials through Fabricademy.
She has established pre-, in- and post-fabrication workflows for the construction industry. This foundation also informs her role as Head of Research at PSK 4x4 Product Thailand, an automotive manufacturing business where she explores new technologies and biomaterials in mobility.
Applied research inside a manufacturing business.
As Head of Research at PSK 4x4 Product Thailand, an automotive manufacturing business based in Ratchaburi, Prapawit brings the fabrication and material research above into a production setting. The role treats the factory as a live laboratory: new technologies, biomaterials and digital fabrication methods are tested against the constraints of real manufacturing—cost, tolerance, durability and supply.
The work connects her pre-, in- and post-fabrication workflows for the construction industry with mobility products, exploring where robotics, computer vision and bio-based materials can enter an existing production line without disrupting it.
Research directions are indicative; specific projects, partners and outcomes can be added as evidence becomes public.
Explore the work.
External links open in a new tab. Institutional links identify the referenced organization or program; project-level evidence can be added as dedicated case-study pages.
Ideas have a lineage.
- Computer History Museum (2023). From Alto to AI. Source for the Alan Kay quotation.
- Sass, L. (2025). Plane Delivery: Towards a Physical Grammar for Large-Scale Digital Fabrication. Technology | Architecture + Design, 9(2), author-hosted PDF, opening page 31. The supplied excerpt includes an internal reference to Sass (2008).
- Research & Innovation for Sustainability Center (2022, July 19). Singh Intrachooto: Mahidol Science Environment & Sustainability Award 2022. Institutional account of his sustainability work.
- Popescu, M. KnitCandela (project, 2018). See also Popescu, M., Rippmann, M., Liew, A., Reiter, L., Flatt, R. J., Van Mele, T., & Block, P. (2020), Structural design, digital fabrication and construction of the cable-net and knitted formwork of the KnitCandela concrete shell, linked from the author’s project page.
- MIT Self-Assembly Lab (n.d.). Programmable Materials. Project team includes Skylar Tibbits, Athina Papadopoulou, Carrie McKnelly, Christopher Martin and Filipe Campos.
Personal achievements, project reach, funding and participation are drawn from Pam’s supplied portfolio. Organization and program links identify the relevant institutions; they do not independently verify an individual award or appointment. Research inspirations do not imply supervision or institutional endorsement.
Visual references & original artwork
The eight Fabricademy collages and portfolio images were supplied by Pam. External cultural and fictional imagery inside the collages remains attributed to its respective creators; no ownership of those underlying works is claimed.