Reinventing Manufacturing, Construction, Buildings, Building Efficiency
Section 8 of “Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology” which will be released end of January. I will be posting a new section daily. Please share your feedback as this is a work in progress.
Key drivers: automated construction, robotic delivery, “transformer” type spaces, shared and higher percentage reusage, 3D printing of buildings and furniture, social networking and increase in community spaces and relationships.
Buildings are a big part of our urban landscape and a large consumer of resources. Construction and building account for more carbon emissions in the US than transportation or industry. LED lighting is enabling 80 percent less electricity use, although unfortunately efficiency in light generation goes hand in with the increase its use.
What if space was reconfigurable and we would need half only as much to live comfortably? Some startups are building cost effective “transformer furniture” systems powered by modular robotics, so that they can seamlessly adapt space to activities and can be installed in a true plug & play fashion. Affordability and availability would go up and land use would decline for housing of large numbers of people. Space would become more cost-effective, and developers would be able to adopt their buildings retroactively. Buildings purpose built for WeWork-like uses and reconfigurable could add additional virtual space.
Further imagine buildings were manufactured like automobiles, reducing costs dramatically. Possibly, next generation buildings would be 3D-printed (in concrete or other materials and maybe steel or carbon fiber reinforced?) and designed with AI, like, for example, in the case of generative design. Thus, they could possibly weigh a fifth as much with much better insulation because of air pockets? What if structural elements like beams needed far less steel or could be 3D-printed with composites. For instance, 3D-printed carbon fiber beams can be five times stronger than titanium, and when 3D-manufactured with no human labor, more cost effective. All unnecessary material unneeded for structure could be subtracted with AI design and 3D-printed? And what if shared office spaces could turn into residences or hotels at night or be “WeWorked”? Could we accommodate twice as many people twice as affordability in the same city? Of course, we won’t take down buildings or rebuild a whole city immediately. Yet, all those freed up parking spaces and new construction would be an opportunity to transform the city gradually over the course of two to five decades. A very large percentage of buildings are non-compliant with current code; the combination of forced compliance and upside economic opportunity with much more cost-effective space may motivate developers.
One can keep imagining delivery robots reducing chores as well as traffic using sidewalks. Or virtual clinic visits reducing medical visits. The complex ecosystem is hard to predict but will offer many opportunities. Robotic kitchens for burgers and delivery robots for home delivery would reduce the need for restaurant space. Here, I’m sticking with more linear ideas that might motivate an entrepreneur to pursue the change by themselves and build the next Google or Tesla.
Manufacturing, starting from cars to furniture and other durable goods, could also use techniques dreamed about above. Construction would put them on a different cost trajectory than in the past, and could potentially end up messing up our GDP numbers as much as computing has! They could be printed locally on-demand when possible (from walls to sofas) and minimally assembled locally; this might be not not feasible for automobiles, but easier for furniture.
Autos would have different material consumption curves because of these techniques and others, like autonomous driving, would eliminate most accidents and hence the need for bulk and crash protection! Add new battery technologies that cut weight in half and accelerate the decline of the internal combustion engine and its pollution. 3D-printed composite structure could mean crashproof automobiles. Public transportation in small pods travelling 10x more miles per year than today’s automobile on average will put pundits prognostications about our transportation needs to smithereens over a few decades.
Cities and urban living can be far more efficient, sustainable, and much cheaper. Imagine a world of cities where we need less restaurant space because of robotic kitchens, robotic food delivery, self picking mini grocery store warehouses for Instacart-like ordering with robotic delivery, virtual entertainment and get-togethers. Parks could substitute parking lots, houses that multiply space as AirBnB like models reduce need for hotel rooms and increase space efficiency. New housing could half the space because of robotic transforming furniture improving space efficiency, WeWork-like space-efficient buildings that are further reused for homeless housing or hotels in the evenings with transforming furniture? Our assumptions about space, cities, density, efficiency, transportation, parks could change in unpredictable ways.
**This is a section from “Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology”. To read the previous section, click here.
