by 2033
* Architects print out your new house on a 3D printer and robots build it.What are they? Houses designed with algorithms, printed out in carbon-fibre form from a three-dimensional printer and built by robots. Advances in computer programming, 3D printing and robotics have opened the door to exciting new architectural forms made from lightweight composite materials such as carbon fibre, fibreglass and Kevlar. The spin-offs include less waste (there are few, if any, off-cuts from a 3D printer), improved energy savings and efficient lightweight structures (using algorithms from natural systems) that can be built where it wasn't previously feasible (sheer cliffs, floating structures on the ocean).
Who is doing it? Roland Snooks, Architect and lecturer at RMIT's school of architecture and design. Snooks, a Fulbright scholar who spent seven years in the US, is back in Melbourne writing his own computer programs, which he uses to orchestrate futuristic Architectural designs. "I think we are on the verge of a revolution in architectural design and construction," he says. "The relationship between new ways of designing in conjunction with advances in materials and robotic fabrication techniques have the potential to make a radically new architecture."
