Towards A Sustainable Architecture

Class: Arch 317

Professor: Gabriel Esquivel

My main question when beginning this project was: How can the second digital turn be used to better our current state of living? One way to improve the quality of our life is to nourish and preserve our home, Earth.

Right now, the building industry is responsible for 50% of the extracted materials from the Earth, 40% of carbon emissions, and 20 million tons of construction waste each year. So as of as now were not doing too great.

Luckily, we have come to a second digital turn, and contrary to popular belief AI and robotics will not be our demise, it will be our answer. I focused my studies around three of the many ways these new advancements will lead to a more sustainable architecture.

First, AI has allowed us to structurally optimize our forms, directly based on the loads that are acting on the object. Subtracting the inconsequential materials needed to hold the loads. Ultimately leading to less excess material.

Second, with robotics comes additive manufacturing, By having a robotic arm we no longer are required to use formwork when construction. It also provides us with opportunity to use new innovative, unthinkable materials.

Third, mass customization allows us to no longer have to use over produced mass manufactured 2 by 4’s and wide flanges. We now have the ability to create project specific structures, allowing us as architects to have creative freedom.