A new paradigm and consciousness of time and technology is being built on this instance and affects the future of how we construct.
Standardized models of construction are strongly related to carbon emissions.
Current Models of construction are not able to mass-produce or adopt solutions for the shortage of housing around the world.
Standardization of Architecture takes as its premise that people are standard and not unique in culture, aesthetics and views of the world.
Automation of parts of the construction industry is required for better collaboration, transparency, cost effectiveness and carbon friendly.
The built environment accounts for 39% of gross annual carbon emissions worldwide.
Construction industry faces a lot of problems from lack of trust, transparency and waste. Time and money are wasted as a result of miscommunication, faulty reports, dependencies on stakeholders and subcontractors, delays, double and manual work.
Construction Industry projects worldwide experience 28% cost overrun on the initial budget estimate.
Robotic manufacturing offers a shift from mass standardization to mass customization
Robotic Manufacturing presents a solution on reducing the embedded carbon footprint on manufacturing processes such as 3D printing, CNC milling or assembly process. The reason behind it is because it predicts the amount of material deposition or extraction during the process and can prevent waste during the fabrication.
Robotic Manufacturing can offer faster solutions for fabrication and construction, since it relies on construction by demand, without relying on a stock of materials. Offering fastest and flexible solutions for low rise buildings.
Human-Robot Collaboration and extraction of data on site also offers new horizons on how to collect data and apply it to digital models and to the design process. This ensures more transparency throughout the process from conceptualization to construction site, offering better data on cost, waste and collaboration. It also allows rethinking data into the design process to review old buildings for retrofit and reuse its capabilities for new spaces and repurposing architecture.
The modus operandi from the modernist movement, influenced by the industrial revolution and the need to reconstruct cities after wars, initiated a paradigm of standardization of architecture and construction.
In the past 30 years, contemporary architecture shifted from global solutions to hybrid models of construction, conceptualization and technology. Embracing the fact that people are a product from multicultural influences and multiple views on ethics and aesthetics. Viewing that people are unique, architecture and construction need to embrace the fact that spaces need flexibility and customization. Robotic manufacturing allied with design offers a solution to customize a product for a multifaceted society.
Automation is part of the answer, but not the only answer
Applying robots and automation in parts of the process from conceptualization to construction not only helps with optimization of certain processes but also increases transparency, customization, cost effectiveness, reduction on carbon footprint and allows for design flexibility and adaptability. We are living in an era of huge advancements in technology that can be applied to the Construction Industry that, right now, is one of the least digitized ones compared to oil, agriculture and fishing.
However, since the beginning of time, construction has always been made by humans for humans as a reflection of how we perceive space and our view of the world. High technology and automation can be the answer for many parts of design to construction but in a collaborative environment such as construction it should not be the only one. A construction model that allows both high tech, low tech and human collaboration in different levels is what historically made architecture to adapt, advance and survive. Therefore the answer for the construction field is never going to be a homogeneous consensus and it should not be.
