An audacious approach to the housing crisis

New possibilities

Today, the Autodesk Research team is continuing to explore how multi-scale generative design can navigate the complex relationships between site, building, unit, and construction. Additionally, the teams are integrating metrics across these scales to allow for data-driven tradeoffs between operational carbon, embodied carbon, cost, and human-centric features like habitability.

Autodesk Research continues to work with Factory_OS to investigate new possibilities with generative design for AEC, automated building engineering systems, low-carbon and carbon-sequencing materials, and robotics workflows. Each of these new technologies and applications has the potential to transform how buildings are designed, constructed, and operated in the future.

Addressing unique challenges in construction posed by the pandemic

While the pandemic impacted the in-person work and collaboration between Autodesk Research and Factory_OS early in the project, it also presented an impetus for even more transformational change in manufacturing and construction. With supply chain interruptions and high costs for building supplies, industrial construction began to gain momentum and industry traction, moving from a niche industry to a real solution for addressing productivity gaps and challenges with delivering quality, affordable housing.

Construction automation plays a huge role in supporting the industry’s digital transformation and in helping to solve the global housing crisis.

Delivering desirable homes—quickly and sustainably

It’s not enough to deliver affordable housing—people also should like where they live and have homes that incorporate important elements like lighting designed to maximize the space, pleasant views, privacy and a reasonable amount of noise from neighbors and the surrounding area. Generative design can incorporate all of these considerations and more into designing and building high-quality homes where people truly want to live.

To date, Factory_OS has built more than 2,000 new homes. The data garnered by Factory_OS and Autodesk Research on industrial construction will help further remove the barriers for building modular homes, essentially creating a catalog of building designs that can be easily leveraged by generative design to meet location and customization needs.

Driving toward a net zero future

As part of its commitment to equip customers with capabilities to design, build, and operate buildings with net zero carbon emissions, Autodesk Research is exploring features beyond typical sustainability workflows with Factory_OS. One feature is incorporating carbon sequestration through building materials, allowing some wall sections to be “carbon-negative” by absorbing more carbon than they emit during the process of their creation. Additionally, the teams are integrating “carbon sequestration through landscape” into generative design to maximize how landscaping can absorb carbon. The goal is to explore how building materials and landscaping design can reduce the massive carbon emissions of buildings and construction.