Industrialised building systems: reproduction before automation and robotics

To deliver quality architecture to the vast majority of people, the building industry should move to full industrialization. Industrialization is basically the aggregation of a large market to divide into fractions the investment in strategies and technologies capable, in return, of simplifying the production and therefore reducing the costs. Simplification is the goal. Whereas the first four degrees of industrialization (i.e., prefabrication, mechanization, automation, robotics) remain at the level of duplicating the traditional construction processes, the fifth degree, reproduction, seeks innovative processes capable of short-cutting the repetitive linear operations of craftsmanship nature. A methodology can be extrapolated from the analogical model of printing (from the electronic printed circuit to the printed plumbing core). Adopting this methodology implies three steps: (i) generating the geometry of the product from the performance criteria; (ii) selecting a process that can simplify the materialisation; and (iii) designing the product accordingly. The load-bearing service core offers a relevant case study of that methodology: the space is distributed between the served and serving areas, the latter being concentrated into a value-added factory-made module capable of generating diversified building types.