Robert Stuart-Smith operates at the intersection of design, computation, robotic fabrication, and collective robotic construction, working in these fields in both business and academia.

Stuart-Smith directs the international architecture and design practice Robert Stuart-Smith Design and the Autonomous Manufacturing Lab (AML) which develops research into large-format additive manufacturing, multi-robot fabrication and collective robotic construction. The AML research labs operate from two insitutions - one based in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (AML-Penn) and the other in University College London's department of computer science (AML-UCL). Stuart-Smith is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and program director of the Master of Science in Design: Robotics and Autonomous Systems (MSD-RAS) at University of Pennsylvania and Principal Research Associate at University College London. He was a co-founder of the experimental design research group Kokkugia in 2004, and has published in journals including Nature, Science Robotics, AD Architectural Design, and Architecture D’Aujourd’hui. His work is part of the permanent collection at Frac Centre-Val de Loire and has been exhibited at the Venice, Tallinn, Beijing and Prague Architecture Biennales, and Paris Lieu de Design. He has taught at uPenn, AA, WashU, RMIT, and U.Innsbruck, and lectured at institutions including ETHZ, U.Stuttgart, MIT, CCA, Sci-Arc, AA, UCL Bartlett, RMIT, Angewandte, Strelka Institute, and Tsinghua University. His work has been featured by BBC Click, New Scientist, Smithsonian, Architizer, France 3, Daily Beast, and others.