MASSINNOVATIONEmerging Technologies in Construction

Ingrid Paoletti Paola Tardini

I. Paoletti P. TardiniM

ASS IN

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merging Technologies in C

onstruction

Abstract

Today, it would seem, technology in

construction is being called in for a rethink.

This is due to different reasons, both internally

and externally of the sector, which are

developing new challenges for designers and

producers pushing them to find innovative

solutions for this changing scenario.

This framework helps to account for a ‘Mass

Innovation’ made of incremental changes

brought about by the development and

introduction of digital control systems in

buildings, information and communication

systems within construction processes, other

new social meanings and requirements and

generally due to a new awareness by human

being of the potentialities of knowledge, its

sharing and its broad diffusion.

Through the text emerging technologies

for innovation are identified: Customized

Industrial Construction, underlying the idea

to go from product choice versus design

system, Digital Fabrication, an emerging way

of approaching technology and fabrication,

than fast and incredible changes due to Cloud

and Information Technologies for architecture

and construction, Materials on Demand due

to chemical advancement and Widespread

Technology Transfer, just to mention a few.

Finally a glance is given towards new trends

like self design and mini factories, on site

robotics and augmented reality and inventive

preservation.

This book is innovative in its contents and

structure, giving a holistic and foreseeing

perspective, that is contemporary and

thoroughly expressive of our times.

Ingrid Paoletti is the Assistant Professor

of Building Technology in the Building

Environment Science Technology Department

(BEST) at the Politecnico di Milano University.

She is a member of the Cluster on ‘Innovative

Technologies and Construction Industry’ and

she is a CIB member, Task Group 119 on

Customized Industrial Construction.

Her research activity is characterized by

a constant interest in deepening the role of

technical innovation in architecture with a

particular emphasis on innovative envelopes

and advanced construction methods.

She has written several books and articles

including Building Complex Shapes (Libreria

Clup, 2008), Innovative Design and

Construction Technologies (Maggioli, 2009)

and Future Systems (Franco Angeli, 2010).

Paola Tardini is an architect, collaborating

with the research activity of the Building

Environment Science Technology Department

(BEST) at the Politecnico di Milano University.

She researches on themes such as the role

of technological innovation in contemporary

architectural practice and collaborates on the

teaching activities at the Politecnico.

She works as architect at the Design &

Constructions Department of Expo 2015

S.p.A. as part of the team developing the

Expo project.

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copertina.indd 1 03/10/2011 23:01:14

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KieranTimberlake Associates, Cellophane House

Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Pavilion B, Fiera di Genova

SHoP Architects, Porter House

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Oxley Woods

Amanda Levete, 10 Hills Place

Modostudio, Office Building and Logistic Center

Cino Zucchi Architetti, U15 Office Building

Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Central St. Giles

Mark e Jane Burry,West Transept, Sagrada Familia

Gramazio & Kohler, Gantenbein Vinery

J. Mayer H. Architects, Metropol Parasol

MUMA Architects, Glass Roof, Victoria & Albert Museum

Future Systems / Andrea Morgante, Enzo Ferrari Museum

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA, Zollverein School

HHF Architekten, Labels Berlin 2

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0.0 Introduction

1.0 Emerging Technologies in Construction

1.1. Industrialized Customization: System Design vs Product Choice 1.2 Digital Fabrication for Architecture 1.3 Cloud Design and Software Integration 1.4 Materials on Demand 1.5 Widespread Technology Transfer 1.6 Self Design and Mini Factories 1.7 On Site Robotics and Augmented Reality 1.8 Inventive Rehabilitation 2.0 Mass Innovation: Drivers and Challenges Bibliography

Table of contents

2 3

How to use this book

thematic matrix (pag.4) credits (pag.148)

case studieskey words

main theme

interesting projects

projectsbibliography

drawings, pictures and details

main concepts and theory

pag.10Cellophane House pag.20Pavilion B, Fiera di Genova

pag.28Porter House

pag.36Oxley Woods

pag.4610 Hills Place

pag.56Office and Logistic Center

pag.64U15 Office Building

pag.72Central St. Giles pag.82West Transept Sagrada Familia

pag.88Gantenbein Vinery

pag.98Metropol Parasol pag.108Glass Roof, Victoria & Albert Museum

pag.118Enzo Ferrari Museum

pag.126Zollverein School

pag.136Labels Berlin 2

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Cloud Designand Software

Integrationpag. 48

Digital Fabrication

pag. 40

Use of BIM software

Laser cut of metalic panels

Laser perforation of metalic panels

Software integration from file to factory

Software integration from file to factory

Planks bent according to

software’s data

Software integration for performance

simulation

Use of robot for the construction of

a brick wall

Use of parametric software

Use of parametric software

CNC cut of wood panels

Industrialized cement elements with

different shapes

Endless possibilities of personalization

Endless possibilities of personalization

Industrialized panels with different dimensions

Industrialized panels with

different shapes

Industrialized wood panels with

different shapes

Industrialized ceramic moduls with

different shapes

Industrialized brise soleil with

different perforations

Panels with different shapes

made by the robot

Industrialized Customization

pag. 22

Thematic matrix

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Materials onDemandpag. 58

WidespreadTechnology

Transferpag. 68

InventiveRehabilitation

pag. 102

Self Design Mini Factories

pag. 78

Innovative public space in the inner city

Use of robot for the construction of a

brick wall

3D laser scanning of the existing

building

3D laser scanning of an existing

building

GPS check of aluminium strips

position

Thermoactive insulation systems

Ceramicextrusion

Advanced cement prefabrication

NextGenSmartWrap

Metal manufacturing from motorcycle

industry

Process from automotive industry

Possibility of self design

Custom-made design

Metal manufacturing

from ship industry

Metal manufacturing

from ship industry

Use of robot from automotive

industry

Refurbishment and integration of a

residential building

Innovativefaçade for an old

building

West transept’scompletion

New glass roof for an historical

building

SentryGlasand glass cold

bending

On Site RoboticsAugmented

Realitypag. 90

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U.S

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2008

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The MOMA exhibition held in 2008 and entitled Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling comprised a selective survey of prefabrication in architecture, from its origins until today. In addition, in the outdoor space to the west of the Museum, five contemporary architectural firms have been invited by MOMA to display full-scale, prefabricated houses which attest to the popularity and innovation of factory-produced architecture. Among them, the Cellophane House by KieranTimberlake Associates, an architecture firm noted for its interest in the debate on the issues of mass customization and innovation of the construction process and authors of Refabricating Architecture, a book that deals with these themes. The Cellophane House is a prototype that becomes a symbol and an example of the mass customization’s principles. The house applies a modern and sustainable prefabrication and offers the possibility to customize the product through a production process similar to the automotive industry’s approach.

Architectural technology, from its broad sense of discipline that studies either tools and instruments or how the level of technical information influences society, is fast changing, increasing the weight in society.It is something of a puzzle that innovation and technical change in the construction industry have received so little attention from economists and historians. No doubt, this is partly because construction was often regarded as a ‘traditional’ industry of very low research intensity and characterized by considerable conservatism and resistance to technical innovation. Such industries have been generally neglected by comparison

with the more glamorous and research-intensive industries such as electronics, pharmaceuticals or aerospace. Until recently, most service industries also suffered from this relative neglect, being almost completely dependent on innovations made by their equipment suppliers.The building industry has for a long time been concerned not just with the primary need for shelter but also with a widening range of buildings for a variety of other public purposes. The demand for new types of building has been more important in stimulating technical and organizational innovation than the need to erect

better and cheaper buildings to accommodate existing functions. It also showed that innovations in basic materials, originating from outside the building industry and with markets far wider than construction, played an extraordinarily important role in the evolution of the industry. These themes can only be satisfactorily treated on a historical basis.The availability of rapidly increasing supplies of cheap iron for a huge variety of applications is universally recognized as one of the distinguishing characteristics of the first Industrial Revolution. The transport of coal and iron, first on the canals and later on the railways,

1.0 Emerging Technologies in Construction

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The building consists of 170 sqm on four floors and it was installed in sixteen days, assembling fourteen modules manufactured off site. This was made possible by the fact that its structure, the PET envelope and the polycarbonate slabs, could be assembled and disassembled using simple hand tools. Its aluminum frame was developed in cooperation with Bosch Rexroth, a worldwide leader in many fields, including mechanics and automation. Together with designers, Bosch Rexroth has used its expertise and technologies in metalworking, transferring the systems developed in other contexts to achieve a lightweight, versatile, modular and fully recyclable structure. The skin is the result of a long research that KieranTimberlake Associates undertook in collaboration with DuPont and ILC Dover, a company that supplies space suits for NASA astronauts. The common efforts led to the creation of a new component, NextGen SmartWrap. This multi-layered plastic consists of one outer ply of transparent PET coated by a film with transparent photovoltaic cells and an inner layer, a film

produced by 3M that blocks heat and UV rays letting the sunlight in. Between the two layers a passive ventilation system heats the building during the winter and cools it in summer, reducing energy needs. Many other technological solutions contribute to make the building energetically self-sufficient: for example, the southern façade’s curtain wall with Schüco E ² Glazing, an integrated façade system with transparent solar cells. All components were manufactured independently and

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made these materials available all over Britain and other countries embarking on industrialization.While the cotton and iron industries were the leading sectors in this vast transformation, the construction industry was also one of the fastest growing, supplying as it did the new factories and mills, the canals and railways and both the new houses for the urban population as well as a growing variety of services and utilities for it.This was also the case with the abundant supplies of cheap and good quality steel which became available as a result of a succession of process innovations in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Since the 70s the area has experienced a sharp acceleration in the processes of transformation and urbanization, due to demand for new built environment. An environment that has had to respond to the increasingly strong presence of labor in the intellectual world of production and hence the stress of increasing shares of common quality.This accelerated model is able to generate a higher quality of life, a renewed push to buildings and artifacts that ensure high performance, mature environmental approaches and high welfare conditions.

If the first, so-called ‘digital’, phase of the revolution has seen the development of predominant visualization software modeling and formal - consider that many of these applications come from other areas, including the cinema - the current phase of the project in architecture shows a digital processing aid in the management of data, speeding up the process and making it easier to set up a ‘track record’.

Secondly, the amplitude of materials and techniques available today from the world of research and industrial production for architectural design has no precedent.This availability is due to the

In this context, technology plays a central role as the only dynamic capable of aggregating different types of knowledge with a view to improving the quality spread, ensuring the increasing survival of the housing stock in the long term.

Today, however, for several reasons technology seems to have come in for a rethink.

Firstly, the speed of information processing, and thus the representation, processing and modeling, has triggered a series of processes of adjustment and adaptation which has radically changed the way we design.

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simultaneously and quickly assembled on site only in the final stage. This was possible thanks to a deep study of connection systems and dry assembly methods that are completely reversible: each element and material maintains its own identity and autonomy and can be easily removed, replaced and eventually recycled. Every element is assembled with tongue and groove connections, metal fasteners, screws and bolts; no element is welded or glued, so as to facilitate dismantling and reuse. This approach can be considered closer to the industrial process of manufacturing a car than to the construction of a building: the subdivision into independent and autonomous systems, the off-site manufacture and the final assembly are the result not only of a technology transfer, but mainly of a process transfer. As the car allows a mass customization of the final product, offering the possibility to choose between different options for each system before the assembly, so the building can be customized and offer different versions depending on the desires of future residents or on the context’s conditions.

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This “industrial” approach has been possible only thanks to the use of BIM software (Revit) with the implementation of a full three-dimensional model shared by the producers of different systems, with an accuracy of 1 / 32 inches (8 mm). For example, all Bosch aluminum profiles have been imported directly into the 3D model that generated production data related to geometry, cost, weight and quantity. The cost of a building’s prototype could range from $ 300,000 to $ 1,000,000, but it is reasonable to assume a remarkable costs’ reduction when more Cellophane Houses will be built. The most interesting aspect of this project is perhaps just this: the Cellophane House should not be considered as a building but as a typology, a prototype. It is the result of a special approach to the project that will be meaningful especially if it is repeated and declined, leading to the creation of other similar examples. The basic typology can be modified in accordance with endless variations, depending on orientation, function, type of soil, climate or context, simply by changing elements or blocks, or by choosing other materials or finishes.

unprecedented development in the search for specific materials, synthesis of some of them and assembly of hybrid systems and components and the rapid advancement in technology and CNC machine tools in industrial production, which currently provides very high degrees of freedom and precision.This scenario turns out to be an open field with countless equivalent choices, in which the designer should be oriented to meet the demands of clients and the specific project. Equivalent choices, while representing a huge potential as a range of possible responses to a given problem, exposing one to the

real risk that the technology is losing sight of the ultimate goal; meeting a need, and taking the self-referential.In fact, rather than the scope of technological change, where the functional stratification tends to take more and more levels in single thinning packages, where the contraction of the construction time and also planning tends to assume a higher value, where the rules are changing, what is to give it a more prominent role?

Thirdly, environmental awareness and its standardization means the European nations put in a prescriptive way the need to adapt to the demands of energy efficiency.

Many standards have already been adopted in the European Union and implemented by the various member states. Specifically, the sector that will surely be driving over to the next building cycle will be the upgrading of existing assets.

Moreover knowledge will be increasingly democratized. The English language is now becoming a widespread means of global communication, about a billion and a half people speak it in perspective, and probably half of humanity will talk it by about the middle of the century.This means that together with the exponential spread of data and

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This mass customized production is possible thanks to the project breakdown in independent and therefore interchangeable modules. After the exhibition the building has been completely dismantled in thirty-eight days. All the components have been removed and can now be reassembled in another place.

Bibliography

BERGDOLL B., CHRISTENSEN P., Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, New

York, 2008

GONCHAR J., Some Assembly Required, in “Architectural Record”, 2008, 196, pp.138-147

KIERAN S., TIMBERLAKE J., Cellophane House, in “AD Architectural Design: Closing the

Gap, Information Models in Contemporary Design Practice”, 2009, 79, pp.58-61

KIERAN S., TIMBERLAKE J., Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing

Methodologies Are Poised to Transform Building Construction, New York, 2004

MORTICE Z., KieranTimberlake Moves Pre-Fab into Mass Customization, in “http://info.

aia.org/aiarchitec – The News of American Community of Architects”, 2008

www.blog.kierantimberlake.com

www.kierantimberlake.com

www.momahomedelivery.org

5 Ground floor 2nd floor 3rd floor

Legend (plan)1_Entrance2_Storage closet3_Mechanical room4_ADA access

5_Kitchen6_Living/dining room7_Pantry8_Bathroom pod9_Master storage

10_Master bedroom11_Balcony12_Mezzanine13_Roof terrace

information, you can access content very fast.The company seems to evolve towards an “ecosystem hyper complex”, where a common humanism and intellectual free will create a way to build just as high in the spread.In fact, the audience tends to have a greater awareness of the benefits of a building, because of a general increase in the culture of the population. In addition to this, energy certification is required by law in the buying and selling of property, for example in Italy.

Since the investment property widespread in some contexts, it becomes clear that quality becomes

a value beyond that if market conditions.

A generational change in purchasing will occur which means that inevitably the level of knowledge will evolve with which, together with a market that rewards short construction time, environment and overall quality of care, more and more at the end user, construction necessarily conforms. In the near future there will be a lot of time spent looking for competitive innovation or development of those within its corporate structure, where much value should be attributed to the training of personnel, given that it

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Summer: stack venting heated cavity air exhausted at roof

Winter: heat retentionheated cavity air blankets perimeter

Legend (section)1_Stack effect draws in continuous air at base of wall vent2_Integrated air damper at each level (operable)3_Clear PET interior layer4_3M solar blocking film5_Air space6_PET with photo voltaic modules7_Stack effect draws in continuous air at base of wall vent8_Opening for hot air

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IMAGES AND DRAWINGS1. Prototype for MOMA exhibition2. Assembly phases3. Plan (first floor), 1:1504. AA’ Section, 1:2005. Plans, 1:2006. Façade system7. Assembly and disassembly8. Chunks assembly 9. Chunks assembly10. Chunks assembly11. SmartWrap prototype

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