How technology can help you to build more homes, faster and cheaper…
Our world has a housing crisis. With a population boom preceding the industrial age and the growth of cities to megacities. There is a clear deficit of quality affordable housing for the population. We are simply not building houses at the scale, speed, and quality that is required. While the building process has seen little innovation over the last few centuries, other industries like manufacturing have embraced technology and seen massive gains in scale. The construction industry represents 13 percent of global GDP, but the industry has seen a meager productivity growth of 1% annually for the past two decades according to the Mckinsey Construction report 2020.
Is that about to change? Could a rapid growth in the human population, development of megacities, a chronic housing shortage, and the need for affordable quality shelter for the masses spur technology use in housing?I believe so, with housing prices rising twice as fast as wages, a fragmented industry, lack of young skilled labor it's about time construction leaped forward with technology. Utilizing technology has the potential of not just improving our future homes but could make them cheaper.
Two key areas in construction where technology can impact the most.
Building materials innovation
Building materials innovation focuses on what we use and how we can improve it. Building materials account for almost 60–80% (depending on the continent) of all construction costs, proving that affordability begins with materials. Innovating on how we build should begin with what we build with. The first key element is to look on what we use and how we can improve it.
Concrete is the most widely used material in the world and is estimated to cause 10% of global greenhouse emissions. Cement and steel are two commonly used building materials. Innovations such as self-healing concrete are estimated to potentially save $90 billion dollars annually. Injecting Carbon dioxide in concrete is also estimated to help in reducing global greenhouse emissions. Steel is also widely used and is its estimated that 85% of steel is recycled mostly using fossil fuels. However there have been efforts in using electricity to make zero-carbon steel rather than utilizing harmful fossil fuels such as coal.
Building process innovation
Building process innovation focuses on how we build it and how to make it better and efficient.
Offsite construction
This is the manufacturing, planning, design, fabrication, and assembly of building elements at a location other than their final site location.
Examples of offsite construction methods
Prefabricated homes
A prefabricated building also known as a prefab house is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Popular prefabricated components include precast slabs, walls and skeletons.
The approach allows more control on quality and systems and reduces the amount of time spent on-site hence negating costs that result from site activities.
3-D printed homes
3-D printed homes use a 3-D printer to churn out concrete. This results in a uniform building process that is controlled by fewer labor using a laptop/tablet. Projects using 3-D printers have increased with innovative projects such as the Newstory’s 1 bedroom 3-D printed home that was built in under 48 hours been a prime example.
Software
Use of software in the management process is a key way to improve processes and keep track of site activities and resources. Utilizing construction management software enables clear control of the whole value chain from procurement to site assembly. Keeping track of procurement, project progress, project resources enables you to track and improve performance, profitability and collaboration among all project members.
By innovating what we use in building (building materials) in making them cheaper, environmentally friendly, and accessible. Also utilizing key technology in how we build and manage our future projects. Technology has a huge potential in not only improving delivery but also cutting costs and making permanent affordable housing for the majority a reality.
Authored by Kelvin Wachira
CEO & Co-founder of BidiiBuild Business
