Siteless House: DFD Precast Concrete House

SITELESS HOUSE: DFD PRECAST CONCRETE HOUSE
Advanced robotic fabrication and design-computation for precast self-compacting concrete
Collaborating Partner: Cemex Global R&D

Siteless House explores an alternative approach to relocatable housing through the development of a new type of Design-For-Disassembly (DFD) light-weight precast concrete tectonic that operates as a structural building envelope with integrated floor and foundations. A design-computation and fabrication method for robot hot-wire cutting of expanded polystyrene (EPS foam) is being developed to enable the design and engineering of light-weight high-strength loose-fibre reinforced precast concrete building component parts. Each part is able to be produced with a variable geometrical form and surface articulation in order to further increase the material efficiency of each part, while exploring scale-free modes of architectural design expression. The project is on-going with a full-size prototype house planned for construction in the next academic year.

Penn Research Lead: Robert Stuart-Smith and Masoud Akbarzadeh.
Cemex Global R&D Research Lead: Vice President Davide Zampini.
Penn Researchers: Mahsa Masalegoo, Bowen Qin, Mariana Righi, David Forero, Riley Studebaker, Yi Dazhong, Yuxuan Wang, Jiangson Yuan, Emma Peng, Musab Badahdah, Ian Pangburn.
Cemex Global R&D Researchers: Alexandre Guerini, Carlos Enrique Terrado, Valentina Rizzo, Matthew Meyers.