Material-Driven Construction Automation: Advancing Low-Carbon, Adaptive Building Systems

Our built environment faces a critical dilemma: By 2050, global urbanization will require us to double our current building stock, yet construction and building operations account for 37% of annual global CO2 emissions (Weber, Mueller, and Reinhart 2021). Ramping up industry-standard materials and methods to meet housing demand will increase this impact. Architectural scale additive manufacturing (3D printing) with low-carbon materials like earth creates opportunities to address the global need for new construction at a reduced cost to stakeholders, including our planet. This approach fundamentally transforms building economics by decoupling geometric complexity from production time. Performance-driven geometries with structural, thermal, and environment-specific design can be integrated into a holistic engineering process that would have previously been directly correlated to increased project costs in the form of highly skilled labor, exotic materials, and time-consuming assemblies.

In his PhD research in Computational Design and Building Technology at MIT, Sandy Curth works to integrate local, low-carbon materials with construction automation. He has published novel methods for material characterization, robotic path-planning, structural and thermal optimization, and integrated Life Cycle Assessment. Examples include (1) zero-waste 3D printed formwork for reinforced concrete, directly recycling construction waste soils, (2) thermally performative earth wall systems parametrically designed to local building code, and (3) material testing and calibration methods for large-scale additive manufacturing in highly variable on-site conditions. Ongoing work includes developing fire-resistant 3D printed earth structures and shape-optimized reinforced concrete floor systems designed to match localized manufacturing capabilities while lowering cost and carbon impact.