Thursday, January 25, 2007
Robotic House Builder Launching in April
This story has been making headlines recently, and I thought it was interesting in relation to our fabrication class.
Behrokh Khoshnevis is an engineer at USC who has created a rapid-prototyping "robo builder", which is essentially just a large concrete contour-crafting machine. Now it's announced that the University of Southern California professor's contour crafting machine will be put to the test in the next few months; it's scheduled to erect its first house in California in April. The two-story house will apparently be built in less than 24 hours out of only concrete and gypsum -- and without the help of a single human hand. Khoshenevis'groundbreaking robo-builder is causing a lot of buzz in the architectural and scientific communities, as the machine provides a new model for construction that drastically cuts building timelines, material, manpower, and waste.
Yesterday it was mentioned in our discussion that this is an oversimplified story, and that is certainly true to some extent. Of course this machine is not going to be able to automate every element of building (roofs, reinforcing, and infrastructure will obviously need to be done separately). Clearly, however, its an interesting new development that has the potential to dramatically shift the building industry, so its a story that is worth watching.
Behrokh Khoshnevis was inspired to build this machine after an earthquake destroyed the city of Bam in his native Iran. Witnessing the devastation, Khoshnevis realized that a technology was needed to allow people to build stable homes in a rapid and economical manner. The potential for disaster relief certainly seems promising, even if we don't all believe that this is going to impact "Architecture" with a capital A as heavily.
I wrote about this on my own blog, and the response from readers was overwhelming. The comment discussion is really interesting and worth a read.
Your thoughts?
Via Wired and Times Online
# posted by Jill Fehrenbacher : 6:46 AM
Comments:
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I think that while this could be a potentially useful method for some types of construction, I don't think it will catch on (at least not until problems like incorporating fast ways to install building fixtures and systems are figured out). I would predict that this will end up much like the segway... useful for some specific tasks but too expensive and too narrow in purpose to revolutionize a whole industry.
The gantry crane structure looks huge, and if the concrete is built up layer by layer (without reinforcement steel) I would assume that the walls would have to be pretty thick. This does not sound like the most economical and efficient use of material compared to the high precision of structurally reinforced precast concrete... which can also be assembled with great speed.
Maybe as this new technology develops it will become much more logical and versatile to use (just a few short years ago solar technology was was pretty crude and inefficient), but I don't think that this will be the start of a revolution in the building industry, nor will it make architects obsolete (not any more than they already are in 90% of what gets built these days).
The gantry crane structure looks huge, and if the concrete is built up layer by layer (without reinforcement steel) I would assume that the walls would have to be pretty thick. This does not sound like the most economical and efficient use of material compared to the high precision of structurally reinforced precast concrete... which can also be assembled with great speed.
Maybe as this new technology develops it will become much more logical and versatile to use (just a few short years ago solar technology was was pretty crude and inefficient), but I don't think that this will be the start of a revolution in the building industry, nor will it make architects obsolete (not any more than they already are in 90% of what gets built these days).
The videos leave some cursory explanation of reinforcement, but not waterproofing, cavity construction, etc.
In addiont the process excludes the process of inspection, which is somewhat important in the often corrupt process of construction.
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In addiont the process excludes the process of inspection, which is somewhat important in the often corrupt process of construction.
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