Erecting a new building ranks among the most inefficient, polluting activities humans undertake. The construction sector is responsible for nearly 40% of the world’s total energy consumption and CO2 emissions, according to a UN global survey (pdf).
A consortium of Swiss researchers has one answer to the problem: working with robots. The proof of concept comes in the form of the DFAB House, celebrated as the first habitable building designed and planned using a choreography of digital fabrication methods.
The three-level building near Zurich features 3D-printed ceilings, energy-efficient walls, timber beams assembled by robots on site, and an intelligent home system. Developed by a team of experts at ETH Zurich university and 30 industry partners over the course of four years, the DFAB House, measuring 2,370 square feet (220 square meters), needed 60% less cement and has passed the stringent Swiss building safety codes.
More here – World Economic Forum
PS: I am afraid I could never take a robot to be a serious builder unless they were able to fulfil the following –
- Never turn up to give the quote they promised.
- Turn up to give a quote but at the wrong time.
- Never give the quote they promised even after turning up at the wrong time.
- Generating a quote that they simply pulled out of their arses and then coming back to you and saying they made a slight error in the quote it’s actually 100% more than the original quote.
- Having accepted the quote never hearing back from them. What happens here is anyone’s guess and is my particular experience with landscape architects who seemed to have been snorting their weed killer.
- Start work and then stop for some random reason.
- Start work and then stop because they forget to order something minor such as the decking for a new deck.
- Repeat step 8 ad infinitum.
- Get annoyed that they don’t get their progress payments because they haven’t hit the landmarks necessary to get paid. This bit seems to escape them, its as if there is a subject at TAFE called don’t turn up, don’t do the work but expect to get paid and we wonder why Australia is a backward haven in Asia.
- Ask to borrow my tools – I am not making this one up I actually had a plasterer who needed to borrow things.
