Is this the future of construction? There are many who say that, in the not too distant future, construction sites will be human-free. According to the British firm Balfour Beatty and quoted in BuildingCo: DFAB_HOUSE_INTRO from designboom on Vimeo. If you think this is unrealistic, watch this video from Designboom where ETH Zurich (known to TreeHugger for its robot bricklayers) demonstrates how to build a curvy concrete wall by robot. It will be used to build the DFAB HOUSE opening next year. According to Designboom: The DFAB HOUSE is distinctive in that it was not only digitally designed and planned but is also built using predominantly digital processes. With this pilot project, the ETH professors want to examine how digital technologies can make construction more sustainable and efficient, and increase the design potential. The design and planning of individual components were digitally coordinated, and these are now manufactured directly on site according to this data. As a result, the conventional planning phase is no longer needed. Here the robot is welding the reinforcing bars together into a tight mesh, Tight enough that the reinforcing acts as its own formwork when filled with a very stiff mix of concrete. How they get the concrete on the outside of the reinforcing and get it all to bond together is not explained clearly, but they have obviously figured that out, too. The floors will be "a smart slab... a statically optimized and functionally integrated ceiling slab, the formwork of which was manufactured using a large-scale 3D sand printer. " The finished product will be a three-storey building built mostly by computerized tools working with concrete and timber. Like a conventional building, it uses different technologies for different purposes instead of just squirting everything out of a nozzle like some of the other attempts at printing houses; this is a real building with real complexity. It may well be the future of the building industry. More images at Designboom.
ETH Zurich has unveiled a construction robot that can build curved concrete walls using digital technology. The robot can weld metal bars and shape concrete, and works alongside a large-scale 3D sand printing device. It is anticipated that drones, robotic cranes, automated diggers and other human-free machines will become common features of construction sites, whilst supervision will occur offsite using 3D and 4D visual remote technology, according to British construction company Balfour Beatty.