A robotic bricklayer, 3D printing and furniture that can be stowed away at the wave of a hand could all help to address the global deficit in affordable housing, according to a study released on Thursday. Nearly 90 percent of the world's cities cannot provide affordable homes for their citizens and millennials are spending more on housing than any previous generation, said the report, compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and consultants PwC.
That is not sustainable, according to the report's lead author Alice Charles, who said better land management practices and improved efficiency in the construction industry could make urban housing more affordable. "Construction practices really haven't changed much in the past 100 years," Charles, head of the WEF's cities programme, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding it was among the sectors investing least in research and development.
The cost of construction could be brought down significantly by new technologies such as a robotic bricklayer being used in the United States that can build a wall up to 10 times faster than a human counterpart, Charles said. Large-scale 3D printing has advanced to the point that companies in the United States, China and the Netherlands are working on housing projects, she said.
Some can produce a home in 24 hours for just a few thousand dollars, according to the report, which cites a 2017 study of 30 African cities that found construction can make up nearly three-quarters of the cost of a project, pushing up prices. Many of these technologies are likely to be adopted far more readily in developed countries, but some hold out promise for poor nations, Charles said from Chicago, where she is due to present the new report at the Pritzker Forum on Global Cities.