MIT Media Lab Mediated Matter group researchers realize a paradigm shift in architectural design, construction, and thinking with the Digital Construction Platform (DCP): custom, individualized buildings computationally grown and additively manufactured using on-site environmental data.

The Digital Construction Platform is a single, multi-dimensional system into which data gathering, analysis, design, architecture, and construction have been integrated.

The Digital Construction Platform (system) is operated electrically (photovoltaic charging is discussed), is free moving, and can be used to design and digitally construct, from locally available materials, multi-functional structures of any size in a single build.

Internal structure can be modified in new ways. Different materials can be incorporated and material density varied as design and construction proceeds to provide optimal combinations of strength, insulation, or other properties.

Benefits of structures built with this system include speed to market, less cost, and customization to the requirements of the site and the objectives of the maker.

Designed to be self-sufficient, the platform can be adapted to existing building sites, equipment, and building codes without requiring whole new evaluations.

Data about the site is collected using built-in sensors for temperature, light, and other parameters. This data is used in the design process and to make adjustments to the structure as it is built.

The use of on-site environmental data has many benefits. Data from sources such as derived ground-penetrating radar analysis of the site enables the placement of supporting pillars, for instance, in optimal locations.

On-site environmental data can also be used in the design of walls.

• The walls may have varying thicknesses depending on their orientation. Thicker, more insulated walls can be built on the north side of buildings in cold climates

• The walls may be configured to respond to local wind conditions. A relatively simple, yet entirely sophisticated, feature  such as a curve in the walls may help the structure withstand wind

• The walls may be designed and built to respond to load-bearing requirements. Like columns, walls may taper from bottom to top as load-bearing requirements decrease.

The Digital Construction Platform features a scoop and a tracked vehicle that carries a large, industrial, precision-controlled robotic arm with a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end.

Sourcing and use of local materials is discussed. The platform’s scoop could acquire local materials for the construction. The scoop would be used concurrently to prepare the building surface.

The precision-controlled arm can be used to direct both a conventional and non-conventional construction nozzle. The nozzles can be used to pour concrete and spray insulation material, can be adapted to vary the density of the material being poured, and can mix different materials as construction proceeds.

The precision-controlled robotic arm would also be used to direct additional digital fabrication and effectors, such as a milling head.

The platform embodies a shift not only in design and construction paradigms but a paradigm shift also in our thinking about buildings – from a “machine to live in, made of standardized parts” to “the building as an organism, computationally grown, additively manufactured, possibly biologically augmented.”

“‘The construction industry is still mostly doing things the way it has for hundreds of years. The buildings are rectilinear, mostly built from single materials, put together with saws and nails,’ and mostly built from standardized plans.”

Steven Keating PhD ’16, mechanical engineering graduate and former research affiliate in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab. He led the development of the system as his doctoral thesis work.

From an architectural perspective the project “challenges traditional building typologies such as walls, floors, or windows, and proposes that a single system could be fabricated using the DCP that can vary its properties continuously to create wall-like elements that continuously fuse into windows.”

Neri Oxman, MIT Media Lab Mediated Matter group director and associate professor of media arts and sciences.

The robotic system is described in the journal Science Robotics (26 April 2017) in a paper entitled “Toward site-specific and self-sufficient robotic fabrication on architectural scales” by Steven Keating PhD ’16, a mechanical engineering graduate and former research affiliate in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab; Julian Leland and Levi Cai, both research assistants in the Mediated Matter group; and Neri Oxman, group director and associate professor of media arts and sciences.

See:

“System Can 3D Print an Entire Building” | Science Daily, 26 April 2017

“MIT Develops a System Than Can 3D Print the Basic Structure of an Entire Building” | SciTechDaily.com, 27 April 2017, Source: David L. Chandler, MIT News

Publication: Steven J. Keating, et al., “Toward site-specific and self-sufficient robotic fabrication on architectural scales,” Science Robotics 26 Apr 2017:Vol. 2, Issue 5, eaam8986; DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aam8986

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