News
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Autodesk acquires assemble systems
Autodesk has acquired Assemble Systems, providers of a SaaS solution that enables construction professionals to condition, query and connect BIM data to key workflows across bid management, estimating, scheduling, site management and finance
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An appointment at Istanbul City Museum
Following its involvement since the early design stage, international building engineers Newtecnic have been appointed by Salon Architects to coordinate the design of structure, facade and MEP engineering for Turkey's new Istanbul City Museum.
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Event Preview |
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Invisible Superheroes
Explore the latest technologies and products that civil engineers are using to transform our future at ICE's Invisible Superheroes exhibition |
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PARA 55
Vectorworks users Squirrel Design reach the 'Holy Grail' of architectural achievement by designing not one, but two homes in open countryside
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The journey towards BIM
Ana Matic of London based architects, Penoyre & Prasad, recently talked about the studio's growing involvement with BIM at Graphisoft's Key Client Conference in Budapest
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Software Review |
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Chalkstring
Originally developed as an in-house tool, Chalkstring satisfies the needs of all subcontractors for keeping costs under control
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Building control
The Building Control Seminar, held at the Institute of Civil Engineers, explored many interesting issues around the implementation of BIM, writes David Chadwick
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Comment
It is particularly fascinating equating the use of robot technology to manufacture building components on, or near, site, as outlined by Andrew Watts of Newtecnic with a couple of articles doing the rounds of Microsoft news about NASA’s ‘3D Printed Habitat Challenge’ to design buildings to be used on Mars from local materials, employing, I would presume, the highly trained astronauts as ‘local skilled craftspeople’. Newtecnic’s Construction Labs are doing, in practice, exactly what is being hypothesized as an essential part of Space exploration and colonization of the Red Planet – or the Moon, for that matter.
It’s not just construction, either, as projects in Saudi Arabia are being designed to facilitate maintenance by robots, the unique designs of some of the projects proving unsuitable for crane access after completion. One of Newtecnics main projects, King Abdullah Financial District Metro hub in Riyadh has been specifically engineered for future robotic access over its expected 60 year life span, using the digital 3D twin model of the building and GPS to plot maintenance locations and routes on the building. Robots can do the heavy lifting, whilst Lidar and camera equipped drones can be used for inspection and cleaning.
This reminds me of a demonstration I attended some years ago, courtesy of SolidWorks, where a company from one of the Gulf States presented a very lifelike ‘robotic servant’ – a country that, like the rest of the region, employs vast numbers of people from the Far East – and, in particular, The Phillipines, - as domestic servants and ‘cheap’ labour.
David Chadwick
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