Construction Innovations

TRANSCRIPT
Construction Innovations

NARRATOR:
Building houses can be slow and expensive, but some companies are finding creative ways to make housing faster, cheaper, and more sustainable. In the small American town of Buena Vista, Colorado, a company is using a factory-based approach called modular construction. Instead of building outside, they build each section, or module, indoors, like cars on an assembly line. Building indoors helps the company save time and materials, and it avoids delays caused by bad weather.

SOUNDBITE – Eric Schaefer:
“Houses are being built in between five and seven days. A typical site-built home has 30% waste. We’re at about 3% waste, so a radical reduction of waste. We can build year-round in a place like Colorado, that where the ground’s frozen or it’s cold outside, that allows us to keep building throughout the year.” 

NARRATOR:
This company has already produced more than 500 homes in just three years. Each house is about 90% complete when it leaves the factory. Once it arrives on-site, workers finish the final details, and the home can be ready for people to move in within six weeks. Nearby, another company in Colorado is testing a very different idea: 3D printing houses. A robotic arm quickly squeezes out layers of concrete, one on top of another. This builds strong walls that can even curve, which normal concrete blocks can’t easily do. Industry experts say robotics could soon play a major role in how buildings of all kinds are made.

SOUNDBITE – Grant Hamel:
“So 3D printing and construction robotics is just a piece of what’s going to be happening in the future. Robots are going to be building our homes, along with everything else that we’re likely going to be doing. But the difference is is construction is the most important industry in the world because it supports every other industry. So we need to quickly develop the automated processes so that we can build faster and stronger and higher-quality structures.”

NARRATOR:
As technology improves, automation could make it easier to build high-quality homes quickly, safely, and with less impact on the environment. People hope these new ideas will help more people find homes in the future and change construction for the better.