Computationally enabled material management: Learning from three robotically fabricated demonstrators

Through the last few years, we have seen a surge in construction material cost because of material scarcity in the wake of a global pandemic and now as a consequence of war. These sudden material shortages make the global market respond with increased prices and longer delivery times, which comes at a great disadvantage to both craftspeople, private people, and the construc-tion industry. Consequently, this has inverted the cost percentage between construction material, and labor cost, where construction material now is a greater expense than labor. This recent shift presents a unique opportunity to refocus research into computationally managed fabrication pipelines to min-imize material use and establish an efficient process to handle offcuts. To demonstrate this potential, this paper presents an analysis of three timber demonstrators focusing on material use through a digital fabrication pipe-line. The paper analyses the material use based on developed 3D models, previously used to develop fabrication data. The analysis aims to describe the consequences of building structures that consists of 1) Different parts, sim-ple joinery, 2) Similar parts, complex joinery; and lastly, 3) similar parts, simple joinery. Through this analysis is developed a framework that sits be-tween the design and fabrication model, which produces optimized cut se-quences to be used with a robotic fabrication system. Furthermore, the re-search suggests a process to handle offcuts, through labeling and databases, which can lead to new sources of revenue for an industry leading fabricator.