Construction: Houses that Can Walk and other Secondary Effects

Next: Construction - the Data Operator

Welcome back to a mini-series on possible futures for construction. In first part we introduced the concept of a modular house and what benefits it brings over the current model. Let’s take a short walk to see what secondary effect this could have.

Fleet Learning

Instrumenting the apartments and collecting data from a large set of units, enables to spot defects in one place and make corrections in other similar buildings before any costly defects have time to develop. After an accident or fault, the collected data can be inspected and symptoms that were present earlier used to predict upcoming incidents. This gives time to prevent them. Such accidents could be for example mold forming in wet and cold structures, water damages, fires caused by old electric wiring etc.

Same happens on the positive side.  Should the care taker of some building find a good way to save money without affecting comfort or need for repairs, this learning can be applied to all other buildings.

Or findings could be about resident comforts. Sometimes very small things can be a big help like just an information leaflet (or app) for new residents on what to do during power outage, where nearby schools and shops are, phone number of care taker, how to buy municipal traffic tickets (should they have moved from out of town here) etc.

Having a fleet makes it economically possible to invest into supporting tools. For example, augmented reality applications that quickly show what the people in the building can do in case of a fault: where to find keys and get access and how to close valves etc. When all buildings are different, such applications become prohibitory expensive.

This means that the buildings get better and better with time unlike traditional buildings that only have wear and tear.

Home as a Service (HaaS)

Modularity enables to create a standardised rental offering. Everyone would know what type of apartment they are getting as the apartment would be similar in different cities.

A service provider may spring up that offers living with a standard monthly fee. The offering could span multiple countries as long as the cost levels are similar. Or there could be some small percentage discount if you move to a city or country of lower costs.

In many professions working from home is possible so at least young people without children might opt for working some months in a warmer country during the dark and cold winter or pick a location well suited for their hobby (mountain climbing etc.).

Standardisation also means that optional services become easier. Interior designers can create different atmospheres for the apartments in co-operation with a service provider who then goes to market with it. HaaS providers might offer a selection of different ambiances for people who like variety when the move between cities.

If there are lots of people wanting to move between cities with the seasons, the HaaS provider might also start moving the modular apartments to where the demand is. Keeping property empty is not wise after all. This could well lead to an effect where you can visualise entire city blocks migrating like migratory birds. With the people, also services like doctors would follow as people like to use services in their native language. Cities would get legs and regularly move between North and South and between East and West.

Houses that Walk

This flexibility of moving is because the scaffolding and the modular apartment are separate entities. Owner can slide the apartment out of the scaffolding onto a truck or train for moving. All they need is some destination scaffolding willing to accept them.

This way people could move between cities or between countries and take largest part of their property with them. Only part you lose is the scaffolding if the area starts losing population and no one else needs it any more.

What you end up is that “cities” or large parts of them might migrate based on weather and economic opportunities.

Such apartment modules would be rather heavy and the crane and other tools used to move them might be expensive and cumbersome to move around. One can think as an alternative a swarm of smaller, intelligent metallic robots that act like an army of ants that can take heavy structures and move them about – also creating temporary structures to move the module over rough terrain or forming bridges.

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Image. Think of a swarm of Boston Dynamics like ant robots carrying a large structure like the modular apartment on their “shoulders”. This concept could replace many specialist equipment now in use at factories, harbours etc. It is sometimes called collaborative carrying.

Next post we’ll take a peek at what data is created in construction and how that could be utilised.