Investing in the future together
The Design++ center at ETH Zurich is researching digital tools from the fields of artificial intelligence and extended reality with the aim of reducing carbon emissions in the construction industry. Halter Group is providing long-term support for this project.
Globally, the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector is one of the industries with the greatest responsibility to reduce its carbon emissions. However, this diverse and multi-stakeholder industry has to tackle numerous challenges to make a big difference. Reducing emissions in the AEC industry requires a change in the way the sector thinks about challenges and carries out its activities. A group of professors, scientists and industry leaders have therefore come together to form Design++, a new research center at ETH Zurich that rethinks the problem and aims to develop new computational tools to help future architects, engineers and contractors build better.
These computational tools include artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR). Artificial intelligence is commonly associated with the IT industry due to its use in search engines, facial recognition on our phones, and more recently text and image creation. Similarly, extended reality is often associated with the virtual and augmented reality used in the metaverse and gaming industry. However, these powerful tools can also be tailored for use in the AEC sector to help us overcome the great challenges that the next generation will face.
What is Design++?
What is Design++The Center for Augmented Computational Design in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, or Design++ for short, is an interdisciplinary research center at ETH Zurich that aimes to advance computational tools in research and practice. The center was proposed by a group of professors involved with the NCCR dfab (National Center for Competence in Research for Digital Fabrication) who wanted to advance innovation in the AEC sector. In addition to developing new robotic fabrication and additive manufacturing methods for sustainable construction, they also wanted to develop new computational design tools with a focus on AI and XR to push opportunities even further. The initial core funding for the center comes from a competitive funding mechanism offered by ETH for future-oriented research domains, while additional funding comes from industry partnerships and research projects on related topics.
What challenges in the AEC industry are we trying to tackle?
Nothing is more important than the challenge of reducing carbon emissions in the ACE sector. This, however, requires rethinking each step in the traditional process – from design, planning, construction and operations to the newer steps of reuse and repurposing. And all this is in addition to the task of building high-quality spaces designed to both provide their occupants with an ideal environment and stand the test of time.
There are many interim obstacles to significantly reducing environmental impact of the AEC industry. For example, while circular construction methods are a promising solution for greatly reducing the embodied carbon of raw materials used in the construction sector, many unresolved challenges remain for logistics.
How can AI and XR be used in the AEC industry?
New computational methods such as artificial intelligence and extended reality have great potential for supporting people who work in the AEC industry. For example, researchers at Design++ have developed generative design tools that use AI to support early design decisions. These tools not only propose different geometric design solutions, but also include performance criteria such as embodied carbon, structural analysis, aesthetics and cost. Two such projects are AI-Augmented Architectural Design and Domain- Aware-AI Augmented Design of Bridge Structures.
Another Design++ project that uses AI and XR is the 7DayHouse project. Its aim is to create a computational workflow that will enable the researchers to design and build a home in seven days (excluding time required for permitting) using interactive AI models that integrate the owner’s preferences and construction requirements for fabrication with an XR interface to help the home owner envision what their home will look like.
Why establish academic and industry partnerships?
Design++ is committed to shifting theory into practice and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of sustainability and innovation in the industry. It is therfore important to form partnerships with similarly ambitious companies that are interested in reducing carbon emissions with new digital methods. At the same time, companies benefit from the strategic partnership by getting front-row seats to the computer science and engineering innovations developed for the AEC industry at ETH Zurich. Within the partnership they can learn what might be relevant and developed further for specific industry needs. This has worked well with the three strategic partners from industry: Basler & Hofmann, Hexagon and Halter Group.
What is the strategy for bringing innovative digital methods into practice?
Together with Halter Group, a fellowship program has been developed to support top talent at ETH Zurich in testing innovative research ideas that have the potential for commercialization. The fellowship program began in 2023 and will support a total of five fellows over the next six years. The intention is to help fill an implementation gap for promising technology and solutions that promote resource efficiency, circularity, integrated planning processes and reduced carbon emissions in the AEC industry. Research topics include, but are not limited to: Establishing innovative methods or digital tools (for example based on AI, machine learning or XR) for the full value chain from design to fabrication of new construction or renovation projects; advancing XR and robotics to support planning, construction, prefabrication and renovation; creating methods for augmenting and/or automating building information modelling (BIM) to bridge the gap between construction and operation; developing data-driven digital planning methods and tools to advance innovation in facades and building skins, construction and structures, interiors and/or building services.
The first fellow began in October 2023 and will work on robotics and augmented reality for construction sites with the aim of improving the localization of diverse data sets (point clouds, images, CAD models, etc.) and integrating these into a robust AR toolkit for construction.
