Towards Construction 4.0: Computational Circular Design and Additive Manufacturing for Architecture Through Robotic Fabrication with Sustainable Materials and Open-Source Tools

There is a constant increase in demand for new construction worldwide, which is one of the main contributors of worldwide CO₂ emissions. Over the last decades, such increase led to scarcity of raw materials. Although design methods have been developed to increase material efficiency, this has not yet led to a widespread reduction in material consumption. This is due to a variety of factors, mainly related to the inability of conventional fabrication methods to produce the complex shapes that result from such computational methods. Industrial robots, while offering the potential to produce such optimised shapes, often rely on inflexible interfaces and highly complex industry standards and hardware components. In response to this dual sustainability and technology challenge, this article describes a series of research projects for the design and manufacture of architectural components using renewable materials and robotics. These projects are based on novel additive robotic building processes specifically designed for renewable and bio-based building materials, ranging in scale from solid wood elements to continuous wood fibres. We propose methods to optimise the distribution of such materials at their respective scales, as well as manufacturing methods for their production. In this context, the use of novel and automatable joining methods based on form-fit joints, biological welding and bio-based binders paves the way for a sustainable and circular architectural approach. Our research aims to develop intuitive open-source software and hardware approaches for computational design and robotic fabrication, in order to expand the scope of such technologies to a wider audience of designers, construction companies and other stakeholders in architectural design and fabrication.