When renovation work began on a century-old YMCA building in Beverly, Massachusetts, a laser scan of the building revealed a unique challenge: nearly every ceiling in the building was slightly uneven. Reframing the walls of the building would require hundreds of different sized studs. Building them on site would be a complicated nightmare.
So Windover Construction, the company leading the renovation, sought out a technological solution. In collaboration with the New Zealand-based manufacturing company Howick, they fed their laser scan data into an automated steel frame fabrication machine that precisely produced light gauge steel studs and panels for the building. The machine also added one critical feature. The new studs are able to telescope, shrinking down to more easily transport into and through the tight spaces of the historic building, and then expanding out like a shower curtain rod slotted into place. “It’s really transforming the way we work in existing and old buildings,” says Amr Raafat, a vice president at Windover Construction.
Currently, the construction industry is a relatively low-tech affair. Despite the fancy design tools and advanced building information modeling systems that are used by architects and engineers, once a project starts construction, it’s thrown into a decentralized world of general contractors who source materials, hire workers and build projects based on their own formulas. Best practices in the industry tend to be based on what each contractor has done in the past. A more systematic approach to building, using technology, is still more of a concept than a reality.
Rundell, who previously worked for a construction technology startup that was acquired by Autodesk, says he’s seen a growing interest in the architecture and construction industries in applying new technologies to the often analog world of building. “What we’ve seen is a convergence of design and make and the expression of that convergence is that innovations in fabrication or how something is made drive innovations in design,” he says. “Think about the automotive industry. The way a car looks is heavily influenced by what is possible to do with a piece of sheet metal. This is still an emerging idea in the building industry.”
One company that developed its technology through the residency program is SkyMul, a construction company that is using drones to handle the laborious process of twist-tying the rebar cages used to reinforce concrete foundations. “This is time-consuming, hard work for people to do manually on a construction site, and it is a little bit dangerous walking around on a mat of rebar that’s unfinished,” Rundell says. Flying in drones frees up workers to take on more important tasks.
The pandemic forced Autodesk to shutter its Technology Centers, though Rundell says they’ll gradually reopen beginning this month. In any case, the shutdown of the centers didn’t stop the collaboration. Autodesk transitioned the residency program to a virtual format in which companies can meet and collaborate online. Without the need to travel to one of the Technology Centers or give up billable hours to take on a residency, more companies reached out about getting involved. There are now about 160 companies and organizations in the residency program’s network.
Windover Construction is using its involvement with the residency program to start changing the way it works now. Raafat says the technologies and tools the company has tested through its residency are already starting to become part of its standard operations. The telescoping wall studs, for example, are now being used on a second renovation project. He says these kinds of ideas likely wouldn’t have been developed without the collaboration enabled through the program. “As a construction company or a robotics company alone this wouldn’t have happened,” he says. “We need each other. We need to collaborate with each other so we can really transform construction.”