The Covin-19 pandemic and technology have already defined 2020, in all respects as well as in the construction industry. But what about 2021? According to trends spotted in social media and in various market surveys, you should watch out for these top construction industry trends in 2021.
Using AR and VR in construction is fast becoming the new craze, and for good reason. Augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality – these three facets have already affected most of the mainstream industries, and the construction industry is no exception.
Using AR, VR, and MR is especially useful in pre-construction design phases. These technologies assist the architects and engineers in virtual construction, and it gets incredibly easy and quick as you continue using these tech. You can also let you client take a virtual walk through your creation before you start building, which give them a much better idea of the actual building that’s going to be, than a simple 3D model, or, heaven forbid, a 2D paper drawing ever could!
For the above reasons, usage of AR, VR, and MR is going viral all over the world, and 2021 will see a massive usage of this yet.
Believe it or not, you can 3D print an entire house within 24 hours these days. The AEC consortium is well aware of the capabilities and implication of this fact, and they are leaping off to grab the trend while it is still fresh!
The ability to make portions of the building off-site and just assemble it on-site has already become incredibly popular. 3D printing ups the tempo by several notch by attaching the prefabrication system to a design computer.
With good reasons such as those, the concrete 3D printing market has already broken quite a few growth records, and is expected to touch $57 million in value by next year. Innovative ideas are being put together to make the construction process faster, cheaper, and more efficient. 3D printing, of course, stands right inside the inner circle of such ideas, which will be sure to show us a totally new way in 2021.
Robotics is being used worldwide in many factories, from electronics to cars to medicines. But their advent in construction industry is somewhat stunted compared to other fields. Where entire factories and delivery rooms run by only robots exist, a fully robotic construction workflow has yet to be developed.
However, that wind is about to turn. Today, robotics is steadily and surely making headways into the construction field. From robotic bricklayers to giant road-making vehicles, we have already seen how robotics can be extremely useful for the industry, and 2021 is sure to have many more surprises in this field than other.
Green building is probably the most used construction industry buzzword in 2020, and it looks like it will only increase in volume, not lower. As environmental treaties are signed around the world, more and more countries are placing more and more building regulations to make them more energy efficient and reduce their environmental impact – both during and after construction.
For several years in the new millennium (and even before that that) architecture has been steadily influenced by green tech solutions to reduce energy consumption of new buildings and optimize towards zero carbon emissions for both new and existing buildings. This drive has populated new industries to develop new building construction and insulation material that can reduce building maintenance and running costs to mere fractions of the traditional.
Recycling of old materials and using natural materials to construct buildings are also two very important facets in the green building criteria. In 2021, these trends will surely grow more and more important, turning into more necessities than quirks.
Modular construction using prefabricated building blocks has been around for quite a while now, but it has been always a specialty area till recent. People are understanding how incredibly useful prefabrication really is. It reduces construction cost, time, manpower need, and wastage. It is quite cleaner than the traditional on-site method, and makes oh so little pollution byproducts. Not only that – prefabricated buildings are often quite sustainable and reusable or reconfigurable too!
For all those reasons and some more, prefabrication is steadily beginning to look like it is here to stay for good. And anyone not jumping on board will be looking dejectedly as the 2021 train whishes by.
This isn’t very well explored yet because robotics is competing with it – or you can say, this is also robotics, in a manner of speaking. Humans are fragile and weak in comparison to machines, and so, these machines are being used to augment a normal human’s abilities. This will greatly reduce the need to use complicated heavy machinery, half of whose entire presence is required just because the puny humans can’t use them in person.
Well, no more. 2021 is about to see real advancement in the exoskeleton sector – modern technology is slowly but surely making that certain. And the market growth for them speaks for itself – a whopping billion dollar growth prediction (by 2021) is nothing to joke about!
