Dübendorf ZH – At the NEST building in Dübendorf, eight ETH Zurich professors are working with robots and 3D printers to build the three-storey DFAB HOUSE. It is the first house in the world to be designed, planned and built using predominantly digital processes.

NEST is a modular research and innovation building at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and the Aquatic Research Institute (Eawag) where researchers can test new building and energy technologies under real-life conditions. Construction recently began on the DFAB HOUSE there, which was not only digitally designed and planned, but is also being built using predominantly digital processes. The pilot project enables researchers to examine how digital technologies can make construction more sustainable and efficient, and increase the design potential.

Eight professors from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich are collaborating with business partners on the DFAB HOUSE project. The work itself is being carried out by robots and 3D printers, as four new construction methods developed at ETH Zurich are being put to the test there. One is the construction robot In situ Fabricator: it fabricated a steel wire mesh that serves both as formwork and as reinforcement for the concrete. Another technology being used is called Smart Dynamic Casting, an automated robotic slip-forming process that can produce customised concrete facade mullions. 

“Unlike construction projects that use only a single digital building technology, such as 3D printed houses, the DFAB HOUSE brings a range of new digital building technologies together. This allows us to use the advantages of each individual method as well as their synergies, and express them architecturally,” ETH professor Matthias Kohler said in a statement.

DFAB HOUSE is scheduled to be completed in summer 2018, at which point the three-storey building will serve as a residential and working space for Empa and Eawag guest researchers and partners of NEST. Digital technologies will also be used once the building is inhabited, such as devices and systems that communicate intelligently with one another or which control the building in a way that improves both energy efficiency and comfort.