Rethinking construction in China
The materials, methods, and regulations currently used in the construction industry are labor intensive, expensive, and limit the possibilities of what a building can be. For large buildings such as skyscrapers, construction times can take years and costs can easily run into billions of dollars. Recently, however, the construction industry has come to face two disruptive techniques: 3D printing at the small scale and modularity at the large.
3D-printed homes and modular skyscrapers
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the process by which a computer-controlled machine that layers a material to build a 3D object. The tremendous implications of this technology have only begun to be realized: it has been applied to everything from electronics to aircraft engines to human organs. A wide array of industries could be revolutionized and human consumption fundamentally rethought. According to the 2012 Economist article “A third industrial revolution”, “As manufacturing goes digital, a third great change is now gathering pace. It will allow things to be made economically in much smaller numbers, more flexibly and with a much lower input of labour…The wheel is almost coming full circle, turning away from mass manufacturing and towards much more individualized production.” (Economist, 2012).
One of the most intriguing applications of 3D printing is in the construction of homes. The most successful of such processes involve large machines layering cement-like pastes to quickly assemble home designs from digital blueprints with virtually no direct human labor and very low cost. Though currently the technology is in its infancy, future advances could allow customers to choose from a variety of home designs (such as curved roofs and walls, eco-friendly locally sourced materials, intricate lattice shells, and embedded plumbing, electricity, and ventilation systems).
Modularity in manufacturing refers to the mass production of certain components, which are then recombined. Components are standardized, allowing easy scalability and therefore lower costs and consistent reliability when compared to building from scratch. While modular homes have long been constructed, improvements in structural engineering, materials, and architectural software allow this technique to be applied to skyscrapers. Building sections are mass produced in factories, and buildings are quickly and easily assembled on site. In densely packed cities where housing prohibitively expensive for all but the most wealthy, modular skyscrapers promise to provide affordable options.
China takes the lead
China developed a vibrant “Shanzhai” culture of copying and refining technologies designed in the West. According to Josephine Ho, the Shanzhai dynamism is due to the, “modular mode of production that the IT industries have perfected in recent years, which effectively lowered the technological as well as capital threshold for independent small entrepreneurs…(along with) the complicated evolving structure of collaboration and competition…that has afforded interstices of business opportunities for the aggressive DIY entrepreneurs.” (Ho, 2010).
Recently, China’s “surge in prosperity…(and) a new level of confidence and boldness in the country’s young urban techies”, an increasing amount of venture capital available for startups ($48 billion in 2014) (Clive, 2012), have built upon the Shanzhai dynamics and led to the emergence of a growing tech culture and maker movement. The popularity of 3D printing in China has exploded, with government promises to install 600,000 3D printers in schools and plans to invest $313 million into R&D including in housing. The Chinese firm WinSun has been a notable player in 3D-printed architecture, recently launching a proof of concept in which it printed ten $5000 houses in just 24 hours:
China’s Broad Sustainable Building Co. has meanwhile been at the forefront of modular skyscraper construction, undertaking an impressive demonstration in which it built 57-story skyscraper in 19 days:
Going forward
Even the most established corporations and players that fail to embrace innovation are increasingly finding themselves marginalized. Uber has undermined taxis, Airbnb threatens hotels, and blockchain techniques promise to upend banking. Construction has remained largely free from such change: the materials, design options, and amount of labor required have evolved very slowly. It is an industry ripe for disruption.
Tech journalist Dale Dougherty notes that China is well positioned to be a center of innovation as, “the resources for making anything are so widely available in China and the expertise is so broad, they are hungry for new ideas and they can turn them into products faster than anywhere.” (Li, Greenspan, and Lindtner, 2014). When it comes to 3D printed houses and modular skyscrapers, China contains both the pressures (high housing costs in cities like Shanghai, low regulation, and a need to transition to a tech-based service economy) and resources (cheap labor and a booming and competitive population of young techies) to be the leader in pioneering these new methods.
Sources
3ders.org “China to invest $313 million in 3D Printing R&D”, Nov 18, 2015. 3ders.org http://www.3ders.org/articles/20151118-china-to-invest-300-million-in-3d-printing-rd.html
Grunewald, Scott, “Will 3D Printing be the Future of China?” December 9, 2015. 3DPrint.com. https://3dprint.com/109668/3d-printing-future-of-china/
The Economist. “A third industrial revolution”, April 21, 2012. The Economist. http://www.economist.com/node/21552901
Ho, Josephine, “Shanzhai: Economic/Cultural Production through the Cracks of Globalization”, Crossroads 2010 Plenary Speech. http://sex.ncu.edu.tw/members/Ho/20100617%20Crossroads%20Plenary%20Speech.pdf
Thompson, Clive. “How a nation of copycats transformed into a hub for innovation”, December 29, 2015. Wired. http://www.wired.com/2015/12/tech-innovation-in-china/
Li, David; Greenspan, Anna; and Lindtner, Silvia. “Shanzhai: China’s Collaborative Electronics-Design Ecosystem”, May 18, 2014. The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/chinas-mass-production-system/370898/