While the construction and property industry has made great advances in introducing green and sustainable materials with “green buildings” becoming the norm, it has not significantly improved its productivity for 40 years. Unlike the automotive industry, where for every 10,000 workers there are 700 robots. Which all goes into making more automobiles more productively, more sustainability, utilising recycling material, using less energy, less water – and most importantly – less men and women. Ken Hickson flies into the future of building. Read more

By Ken Hickson in abc carbon express (15 April 2013):

“Up, down, flying around,

 looping the loop and defying the ground.

They’re all frightfully keen,

 those magnificent men in their flying machines.”

From the 1965 film and song of the same name, “Those magnificent men in the flying machines”.

Fast forward to 2013 and former aviation writer – now sustainability consultant – Ken Hickson witnesses technology and good old fashioned inventiveness coming together in the appropriately named CREATE building in Singapore.

Flying in the Face of the Construction Industry:

Aviation Aids Architecture & Digital Fabrication

The words wouldn’t get out of my amused and inspired mind – “Up down, flying around” – as I watched with intrigue as small radio – or more correctly, computer – controlled mini-helicopters lifted and correctly positioned blocks to build a multi-storey construction.

Yes, this was happening right here at a serious minded seminar involving very serious Swiss and German architects, engineers, scientists at the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) of the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC).

Admittedly, it was video-taped demonstration and shown to the room, but also on hand was one of the real little flying machines to show their size and shape.

Robots in action to build buildings – and high rise at that – are not some figment of an imaginative architect but being put into practice – admittedly in test beds and research centres at this stage – in Singapore and Switzerland.

And for good reason. The construction industry worldwide has been very slow to adopt automation. If you could find robots anywhere on a building site, they are literary dwarfed by high rise cranes – hundreds  of them – in an industry obsessed with getting more and more men doing more menial tasks.

Compare construction with the automobile industry, where automation plays such a major role. Robots do practically every task on the car production line, once manned by busy manual workers.

For every 10,000 workers in automobile industry there are 700 robots. Which all go to into making more automobiles more productively, more sustainability, utilising recycling material, using less energy, less water – and most importantly less men and women.

At the same time, the human mind is still well utilised. The cars of today and tomorrow are still designed by real people, but the same designers are making greater use of computers and automation.

Why hasn’t the construction industry adopted some of these practices.  Admittedly architects and engineers are well practiced in the use of CAD designs, BIM systems and go through building simulation and computerised assessment of materials and methods.

But for all that – as an industry leader told me recently – the construction and property industry has not significantly improved its productivity for 40 years. Forty years of advances in technology have not made their presence felt on the construction site, even as buildings have gone up higher and higher. They take just as long to make now – and involve just as many men per square metre  – as 40 years ago.

That has to change. And the Future Cities Laboratory, with its architects and engineers driving it, are moving towards significant changes. With robots and mini flying machines to the fore.

It was an experience to visit the Laboratory and talk to the scientists there, including Professor Ralph Eichler, President of ETH Zurich University as well as Professor Doctor Gerhard Schmitt, the director of the Singapore centre. Also on hand to deliver the most impressive presentation on robotic fabrication was Professor Fabio Gramazio.

On the day of the visit, ETH had this to say:

“The world today faces a rapid growth in urban population – the United Nations estimates that nearly 75% of the world’s population will reside in urban areas by 2050. Cities, as we know it, will become even denser than they are now. Innovation is needed to create an environment that can cope with the growth of urbanisation in a sustainable way and increases liveability.”

So the work of the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL), set up by Singapore’s National Research Foundation and the Swiss Federal Institute ofTechnology (ETH) Zurich, incorporates research of digital fabrication to investigate the implications of robotic fabrication processes on the design and construction of high rises.

A panel discussion on the day focussed on the pace of urbanisation in Asian countries, agreeing that high rise buildings will continue to play a critical role in high-density cities, especially in cities like Singapore, where land area is limited.

“High rises are here to stay, and while we have gotten used to their presence in our cities, it is now pertinent for us to start investing in innovative, sustainable and more importantly, integrated ways of constructing these high rises,” said Professor Gramazio, who leads robotics team at FCL.

As we noted earlier in this article and ETH confirms that “robotic and automatic productions have taken over large parts of many industrial sectors. However, the potentials of robotic fabrication are not fully exploited if only in used for the execution of purely repetitive mass fabrication processes”.

As we observed, robots can be controlled individually and thus offer the potential for variety, differentiated assembly and mass customisation – at a large scale.

Professor Gramazio further emphasizes: “It is time to think about customised robotic processes, products and planning methods for architecture at larger scales.”

Reinforcing Professor Gramazio’s sentiments, Professor Eichler added that the accelerating rate of urbanisation is a great global challenge.

“In high-density urbanisation, robotic fabrication of high rises will certainly play an innovative and efficient role.” The ETH Zurich President, who was in Singapore to officially assume the role of Chairman of the International Alliance of Research Universities, also concluded that the collaboration of top scientists and engineers within the FCL and together with the universities based in Singapore is a unique opportunity to deliver ground-breaking research.

The final words come from a fact sheet produced by the ETH Future Cities Laboratory

ARCHITECTURE AND DIGITAL FABRICATION: DESIGN OF ROBOTIC FABRICATED HIGH RISES

Robotic and automated production processes have taken over large parts in many industrial sectors. In architecture and building attempts to deploy robotic processes remains the exception.

Many applications have been confined to prototype and, at larger scales, have often resulted in failure. This is because the general approach has been to either automate existing manual processes or the complete production process. However, the potentials of robotic fabrication are not fully exploited if used for the execution of purely repetitive mass fabrication processes. Robots can be controlled individually and thus offer the potential for variety in design as well as for differentiated assembly.

As Singapore’s land area is limited, high rises represent the most common building typology. In order to investigate and develop customised robotic processes, products and planning methods for architecture at such a large scale, three robotic facilities were installed at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. These facilities allow the fabrication of 1:50 scaled models of up to 50 storey high buildings.

The research module carefully investigates specific design logics and construction processes to identify potentials for robotic application and to develop new high-rise typologies. The aim is to define strategies for the production of formal differentiation and functional diversification in generic urban contexts, and to test the integration of robotic technologies into the design, construction and fabrication of high-rise buildings.

Source: www.futurecities.ethz.ch