Bristol-based construction startup, Automated Architecture (AUAR, pronounced ‘our’), is going global with its pop-up micro-factories. Each micro-factory contains a robotic arm with machine vision and AI capabilities, meaning it can cut the panels needed for house construction. And two of these micro-factories are being shipped over to Indiana in North America.
Driven by skyrocketing costs and a shrinking workforce, AUAR founders Mollie Claypool and Gilles Retsin have a goal to make sustainable, affordable housing more accessible. Partnering with ABB Robotics to work on their initial products, they started with garden rooms before raising £2.6m in funding and moving onto full-sized homes.
With an R&D lab in Bethnal Green, London and a team of 15, the business is growing, with a micro-factory in Belgium as well as the two in the US. These micro-factories can manufacture the core and outer shell of one home in less than 12 hours. The annual capacity of one micro-factory is up to 180 homes per year.
Compared with traditional modular construction, the costs to licence one of AUAR’s micro-factories are low, with an upfront expenditure of £250,000 along with an ongoing monthly fee. The anticipated return on investment (ROI) is £2.5 million, annually, per micro-factory.
Speaking to the BBC, Mollie Claypool explained: “AUAR’s partners don’t need to invest millions in setting up large factories, as modular housing companies do, but can immediately offer innovative, high quality, low-energy homes at market rates to their customers.”
Each micro-factory fits into one shipping container, and the factory can be set up in a tent on site, or in a building near the construction site. The ABB robotic arm scans, selects and cuts timber elements and then assembles them into frame panels to create the walls, ceilings and floors of a house. Their proprietary hardware and automated saw ensures accuracy and minimises waste.
AUAR’s new US-based partner plans to build thousands of sustainable and affordable homes across the Midwest. And AUAR is aiming to supply 140 partners by 2030, creating capacity to build more than 30,000 homes each year.
For a company founded in 2022, they are growing fast, and it will be interesting to see where they get to over the next few years. As an industry we are moving beyond the point of worrying about “robots stealing our jobs” as there aren’t enough trained people in the construction industry to build the number of homes needed. Potentially we’ll see an explosion in this kind of building, especially if the ROI is as promised.
It’s clearly something that’s more likely to take off in the US and continental Europe than in the UK, due to the nature of the structures being built. Insurers here are reluctant to insure timber structures, not least because our mortgage companies class timber buildings as a ‘temporary structure’. But if that hurdle can be overcome, then maybe we’ll see more of this type of construction here too.
What do you think? Is this type of innovation a positive way forward for our industry? It’s always good to hear your thoughts.
Meanwhile, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
