Eliminating Building and Construction Waste with Computer-Aided Manufacturing and Prefabrication

Abstract

Affordable computer-aided manufacturing has made possible a new category of timber structure. Components can now be intricately detailed to a high level of precision on a large scale. This approach has meant the increasing use of timber-only joints and more intelligent structural solutions that exploit the inherent qualities of the material. This study suggests that these construction parameters, enabled by computer-aided manufacturing, are advantageous when attempting to eliminate lifecycle building and construction waste. In this research existing and specifically designed low lifecycle waste construction solutions that have used computer-aided manufacturing are compared to conventional platform light timber framing. The study finds that using computer-aided manufacturing technology to fabricate advanced assemblies can lead a 67% reduction in the time required to recover building materials for reuse (versus the cost of reusing materials from traditional construction techniques). The use of a single material with integrated sophisticated jointing conditions is also seen to lead to the potential total elimination of adhesives and composite materials.