Architectural 3D Printing is Robotic Construction

For the last post before the Christmas I wished to focus on an AECMag article entitled “Rise of the Robots”. Highlights from the lengthy piece include insights about drones, modular building techniques and architectural 3D printing.

Early into my architectural 3D printing research I made the connection between architectural 3D printing and drones: One - that the technologies tended to blur together on a continuum and two - the future will look nothing like we expected. The article highlights a number of different drone designs for construction applications and they don’t look anything like the drones from Star Wars who built the Death Star. Notably the brick laying robot Hadrian from Australia would make an excellent Minecraft robot with some slight modifications changing bricks to cubes.

I was happy to see UC Berkeley, previously mentioned on the blog, acknowledged for its continued research into materials and printing methods. Each MIT and the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia continue to advance swarm robotics (which directly relates to the use of multiple drones on a project). And in 2015 Dutch company MX3D, also previously mentioned on the blog, introduced an ambitious project to 3D print a 12 foot bridge using a wire welding robotic arm (see above). Once finished, I would not hesitate to cross over it. London-based D-Shape is also in there, leaders in 3D printing cementitious material who ignored my emails to purchase samples last summer.

I think the article does a good job outlining the history of architectural 3D printing and some of the obstacles facing early adoption but strains credibility when suggesting only signature firms are interested in technological approaches or complex forms when I think the exact opposite bares out in reality; that all AEC firms, almost without exception, want to be seen as technologically sophisticated. I was also less than enthused with the focus on 3D printing habitats on Mars and the Moon. The topic is too narrow with too many constraints specific to those alien locations to be helpful building on Earth.