Technology, techniques, new materials and manufacturing methods outline the progression of building construction. In the history of architecture and construction no period or era of growth redefined architecture and construction as profoundly as industrialization. Machines helped make, carry and assemble structures irrespective of their scope and size. Impressive and odd machines symbolised this capacity applied to construction. Robert Tournalayer’s invention, the Tournalayer, symbolizes this type of industrialized device that would streamline tasks like casting and formwork for mass-produced concrete dwellings.
Today, another revolution in manufacturing methods is disrupting traditional trades. Information technology is taking its place at every level of construction from design to manufacturing and building management. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a specific area of progress where the processes being considered are perhaps as equally disrupting as Henry Grey’s continuous rolled beams were during the industrialization. AI is serving to advance all sorts of tools to organize, verify, inspect, control and document construction. From drones to co-bots to wall making automated masons, numerically controlled construction instruments are being imagined as probable solutions to construction’s often discussed lagging productivity.
Already the subject of experimentation autonomous construction machines from excavators to bulldozers and other self-guided instruments are the basis of Built Robotics’, a burgeoning company founded in 2016, business model. The company is modifying and adapting existing construction heavy equipment and upgrading it with guidance systems rendering a driver and operator superfluous. Presently employed specifically for simple tasks like moving stuff, excavating, pushing and loading it is possible to imagine that repetitive tasks could be further defined and programmed to include other more demanding and precise missions. AI combined with virtual reality could help set up buildings without anyone ever setting foot in the machines or on a dangerous sector of the building site. Defined by equal parts machine and coding, this new paradigm where buildings are assembled by robots is releasing a new wave of ethical questions for the construction industry, particularly for attributing responsibility. Who is responsible for a robot gone haywire, the coder, the builder, the architect, the contractor, the manufacturer ? What are building contracts or building specifications going to look like for framing AI devices ?
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| Self-guided excavator from Built Robotics |
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