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Bay Area startups see big opportunity in construction technology The industry has seen a torrent of investment in 2018 as startups seek to inject much-needed innovation into the sector. During the first half of 2018, investors pumped a record $1.05 billion in contech startups, which is 30 percent more than the 2017 total, according to a recent report from real estate firm JLL. Managing construction sites is hard work. The industry is plagued with high costs, labor shortages and slow progress. Construction is one of the least digitized industries in the world, according to a 2016 report from McKinsey Global...

Otis' self-climbing lifts used in construction of City of London's tallest skyscraper   Otis' Sky Build lifts, which climb up a building as it is built, are enabling the efficient construction of the 278-metre-tall Twentytwo skyscraper in London's financial district. Designed by London-based PLP Architecture, the tower formerly known as 22 Bishopsgate will be the tallest building in the City of London when it completes in 2019. Two of Otis' Sky Build lifts were installed at the site at the beginning of construction and have been used throughout the build. They will even remain in the building when it completes. The self-climbing lifts...

Watch a swarm of robots build a fiber structure The robots are here—and they’re pretty cute Photo via Mediated Matter Group Neri Oxman is an enigmatic designer. The MIT Media Lab professor comfortably straddles the worlds of architecture, art, interaction design, and synthetic biology. What comes out of that venn diagram of disciplines are, as you might guess, some pretty wild ideas about the future of architecture and materiality. Photo via Mediated Matter Group Oxman’s Mediated Matter Group recently finished a research project called Fiberbots and, appropriately, it’s a bizarre mix of robotics and sculpture. The name Fiberbots refers to...

The future of construction: Hand-built by robots? Technological convergence and disruption is driving innovation, and raising new challenges, for industries across the economy. We speak to Suzanne Gill and Helen Garthwaite, partners at Wedlake Bell and co-founders of Tomorrow’s City, Today’s Challenge about the ever developing technological landscape.  According to the World Economic Forum, however, construction and engineering have to date been hesitant to ‘fully embrace the latest technological opportunities’. This has, in many cases, led to productivity stagnation, with McKinsey estimating that if global construction sector productivity achieved its potential it would boost the sector by $1.6trn – adding 2% to...

Can artificial intelligence change construction? As IBM’s Watson adds its computational power to construction sites, tech sees an industry in need of an upgrade IBM’s Watson supercomputer has beat Jeopardy champions, reconstituted recipes, and even helped create highlight reels for the World Cup. Now it’s taking on a new tech challenge; changing how the construction industry operates. A new partnership between IBM and Fluor, a global engineering and construction company, will put the supercomputer’s computational skills to work on making building more efficient. The new Watson-based system, in development since 2015 and now in use on select projects, will be...