SCALABLE DISRUPTORS

Cli­ma­te chan­ge, CO2 emis­si­ons and re­sour­ce scar­ci­ty – with the re­cogni­ti­on of the An­thro­po­ce­ne, it is evi­dent that the buil­ding sec­tor must un­der­go a pro­found trans­for­ma­ti­on. As a re­sult, re­se­arch has em­bar­ked on a qu­est to find real dis­rup­tors to cur­rent buil­ding tech­no­lo­gies. In this qu­est for chan­ge, in­c­re­men­tal im­pro­ve­ments to exis­ting sys­tems are no lon­ger suf­fi­ci­ent. What is nee­ded are high­ly spe­cu­la­ti­ve, high-po­ten­tial ap­proa­ches that ac­cept and ack­now­led­ge failu­re as a lear­ning pro­cess and in­te­gral de­ve­lop­ment st­ra­te­gy. Beyond the re­por­ting of our suc­ces­ses, the in­sights and know­led­ge gai­ned from ab­er­ra­ti­ons can hold enor­mous de­ve­lop­ment po­ten­tial.

Buil­ding with less ma­te­rial and im­pact is an es­sen­tial part of any de­sign de­ci­si­on, as man-ma­de cli­ma­te chan­ge and re­sour­ce scar­ci­ty are un­de­nia­b­le. Two cur­rent trends are at­temp­ting to pro­vi­de an ans­wer: buil­ding with re­ne­wab­le re­sour­ces and reu­sing exis­ting buil­ding com­pon­ents. Whi­le tim­ber as a re­ne­wab­le ma­te­rial is al­rea­dy ex­pe­ri­en­cing a sig­ni­fi­cant in­du­s­trial push, and clay is fol­lo­wing suit, new bio-buil­ding ma­te­rials and pro­ces­ses are still in the la­bo­rato­ry. Ad­van­ced mo­del­ling, si­mu­la­ti­on and ma­chi­ne lear­ning, aug­men­ted rea­li­ty and ro­botics are key tech­no­lo­gies for in­du­s­tria­li­zing the­se no­vel con­struc­ti­on pro­ces­ses. Whi­le so­me ex­pe­ri­ments ha­ve shown po­ten­tial for scalab­le so­lu­ti­ons, others ha­ve de­mon­s­t­ra­ted vi­sual ap­peal but ina­de­qu­a­cy as buil­ding sys­tems.

Sca­ling, both in terms of the tran­si­ti­on from la­bo­rato­ry to in­du­s­try and from in­du­s­try to grass­roots, and from small ro­bots to lar­ge ro­bots, has sig­ni­fi­cant im­p­li­ca­ti­ons across dif­fe­rent do­mains. It re­qui­res in­te­g­ra­ti­on not on­ly in terms of practi­ce and tech­no­lo­gy, but al­so with com­muni­ties and in­di­vi­duals. In ad­di­ti­on, the con­cept of sca­ling rai­ses qu­es­ti­ons about how cir­cu­lar de­sign chal­len­ges tra­di­tio­nal no­ti­ons of re­sour­ce availa­bi­li­ty, so­cio eco­lo­gi­cal net­works and eco­sys­tem ser­vices, es­pe­cial­ly as we sca­le up. Re­cent ad­van­ces in com­pu­ta­tio­nal me­thods in Ar­chi­tec­tu­re, En­ginee­ring and Con­struc­ti­on (AEC) ha­ve the po­ten­tial to con­tri­bu­te sig­ni­fi­cant­ly to the de­sign for di­sas­sem­b­ly and sca­la­bi­li­ty of buil­ding ma­te­rial reu­se. Con­tri­bu­ti­ons will ex­em­p­li­fy how we can mo­del per­for­man­ce-ba­sed de­sign, trans­for­ma­ti­on and growth pro­ces­ses to mea­su­re and eva­lua­te out­co­mes.