People-Led Digitalization: Lessons learned from two concrete shell research projects

The shell and spatial structures engineering community has long-since been at the forefront of computational design development. Yet, as we look at the vast number of new buildings being constructed in cities around the world, examples of such efficient structural engineering solutions are hard to spot. It is as though these innovative computational designs are being ignored in favor of the inefficient status-quo. This paper uses two recent research projects to highlight the issue, and introduces new people-focused research to suggest a solution. The ACORN project developed an automated off-site construction system for thin-shell fiber-reinforced concrete floors capable of reducing embodied carbon by 40% compared to their solid-slab equivalents. The Aerial-ABM project developed autonomous drones capable of 3D printing buildings in concrete. Both projects developed novel methods of efficiently constructing buildings using cutting-edge technology, but neither have [yet] led to a step-change in current practice.
The hypothesis of this paper is that the missing link is People; and that without placing people at the heart of technology-based solutions, important opportunities for innovation will be missed. The “Made Smarter Innovation: Centre for People-Led Digitalisation”, hosted by the University of Bath, UK, creates needs-driven processes to support industry in realizing the potential of a people-led approach to digitalization. The shell and spatial structures engineering community should therefore adopt a people-led approach to its computational design development, in order to fully realize the benefits of its innovation.