The Future of Construction...?

[HiEquity]

A 30 storey, 17,000sqm hotel built in 15 days!

It would be interesting to see whether that building was actually any cheaper than conventional construction. Most of the figures I have seen for similar stuff ends up being only marginally cheaper to build for the same spec (most savings being the result of a reduction in spec) but definitely heaps faster to build with far fewer weather and site related risks

I disagree with the author that this stuff will end up all getting built out of China. He accurately makes the point that more and more of the value chain will be automated, in which case the labour price differential is not as material anymore compared to the cost of transport. And the robots are getting cheaper - giving a clear advantage to localised / customised manufacturing instead. Modern automated CAD / CAM allows both automation and customisation at modest cost - we don't have to all live with the same design - and they don't have to all be made in the same place.

The more automated manufacturing becomes, the more localised it will become again as transport costs become more material and labour costs less material. There is hope for local manufacturing yet! Particularly with a lower dollar...

 

[Scott No Mates]

Not gonna happen in my lifetime.

A building of that scale just doesn't sit lightly on an unprepared site. Groundwork would be nothing short of substantial, footing design intricate, differential settlement would be a concern without a detailed understanding of the load paths within the structure.

Crane capacity would be stretched to their limits with multiple levels being raised simultaneously.

This doesn't even touch on design issues or meeting the requirements of the BCA which is yet to envisage such structures.

 

[Phiber]

Interesting development!

Thanks for the video!

 

[JDP1]

A 30 storey, 17,000sqm hotel built in 15 days!
...


The more automated manufacturing becomes, the more localised it will become again as transport costs become more material and labour costs less material. There is hope for local manufacturing yet! Particularly with a lower dollar...

The world is getting smaller... Yes the costs of transportation might go up, but that is greatly offset by total costs yo manufacturers. what offshore players need is information - eg information on customer requirements. Those who provide information are the ones who will win big eg Microsoft, Salesforce.com, google etc...

 

[C-mac]

This stuff opens up more macroeconomic discussions about the continued culling of human labor (based on there being decreased need for it with these future technologies) in favour of automation... Thing is, it is in every single industry and vertical that you can think of; where masses of human jobs are being removed or heavily reduced due to technology doing a better/cheaper/faster job.

I'm a glass half full guy; but can't help but wonder... In the year say 2050, where are the 97% of the ~5 billion working age humans going to, you know, actually work??? The 3% who own everything and have all technologies stitched up will be the elite, but with fewer (read: a LOT fewer) jobs to go around for the remaining 97%, how will people feed themselves and their families?

I'm hoping for some kind of Star Trek future where money is rendered irrelevant and the notion of work for 'money' stops. Instead, work for passion and/or human development I.e. 'greater good' stuff would take over...

But then I remind myself, Star Trek is just a silly tv show and the real world is much more vicious and self-interested!!

Still.. I often wonder; I'm 33 now but at say 83, what will the 33 year olds of the day actually be doing for work? Construction jobs dont sound as likely, that's for sure.

 

[ej89]

How much would it cost to get these Chinese blokes to come to my block of land and build me a single storey 4 bedder. Should be able to finish that by lunchtime if they can do that in 15 days haha