Automating Concrete Construction (ACORN)

我们的长期愿景是通过创造一种全新的整体方法来制造、组装、再利用和拆除混凝土建筑，从而带来更健康、更安全的建筑环境，从而显著提高整个建筑行业的可持续性和生产率。目前，建筑中使用的混凝土中有多达一半是不必要的，之所以出现这种情况，是因为它是使用罗马时代以来使用的平面模板成型的。这导致梁、柱和楼板的棱柱形状效率低下，这是浪费、对建筑的限制，也是建筑中具体排放的主要驱动因素。情况不一定是这样。混凝土最初是一种液体，只要模具合适，就可以形成任何形状的结构。通过将混凝土建筑的施工转移到一个高度自动化、质量可控的环境中，并使用机器人技术来创建优化的非棱柱模板，我们的建筑可以变得更可持续，建筑业的生产率也更高。ACORN的方法建立在团队成熟的计算设计专业知识的基础上，他们开发了创新的数字工具和技术，在设计阶段优化建筑的形状、布局、结构和外墙。它将在建造过程中将这种方法扩展到下游，以涵盖制造。这里的新奇之处在于创建了集成的端到端数字流程，以自动化非棱柱建筑构件的设计和制造。它利用了最近价格实惠的机器人技术的激增，并将它们带入一个在可持续性和生产力方面进行阶段性改变的成熟行业。一些简单的事情，比如让梁、柱和楼板具有它们完成工作所需的形状，而不是它们需要容易形成的形状，这让我们能够彻底重新思考我们建筑中材料的使用方式。我们可以开始问一些问题，比如它们应该是什么形状，我们应该用什么材料制作它们，我们如何有效地增强这些元素，我们如何考虑终身价值，以及我们应该如何组织我们的设计过程以利用优势？橡子将回答所有这些问题。

Our long-term vision is to dramatically improve whole life construction sector sustainability and productivity by creating a culture that takes a fresh, holistic approach to the manufacture, assembly, reuse, and deconstruction of concrete buildings, leading to a healthier, safer, built environment. Currently, up to half of the concrete used in buildings is unnecessary, and is only there because it is shaped using planar formwork, used since Roman times. This leads to inefficient prismatic shapes for the beams, columns and floor-slabs, which is wasteful, architecturally constraining and a major driver of embodied emissions in construction. This need not be the case. Concrete is initially a liquid and can form structures of any shape, given the right mould. By moving the construction of concrete buildings off-site, to a highly automated, quality controlled environment, and using robotics to create optimised non-prismatic formwork, our buildings can become more sustainable and the construction industry more productive.ACORN's approach builds on the well-established computational design expertise of the team, who have developed innovative digital tools and techniques to optimise the shape, layout, structure and façade of buildings during the design phase. It will extend this approach downstream in the building process, to encompass fabrication. The novelty here lies in the creation of integrated end-to-end digital processes to automate the design and manufacture of non-prismatic building elements. It capitalises on the recent proliferation of affordable robotics, and brings them into an industry ripe for a step-change in sustainability and productivity.Something as simple as allowing beams, columns and floor-slabs to have the shape they need to do their job, rather than the shape they need to be easily formed, allows a complete rethink of the way material is used in our buildings. We can begin to ask questions like what shape should they be, what material should we make them from, how can we reinforce the elements efficiently, how can we take into account whole-life value and how should we organise our design processes to take advantage? ACORN will answer all of these questions.