Many parts of the world are experiencing a housing crisis, with demand often outstripping supply in urban areas, leading to soaring prices.
In countries including the UK and the US, the need for more construction workers is increasing as a combination of an aging construction workforce and a drive to fill housing shortages. The UK Construction Industry Training Board has revealed that 250,000 more workers are needed by 2028 to meet construction targets, but more people will leave the industry than join in 2023.
British technology company Automated Architecture (AUAR) (pronounced “we”) believes it has a solution. We manufacture mobile micro-factories that can manufacture the wooden frames of houses – walls, floors and roofs. Co-founder Molly Claypool says microfactories will be able to produce panels faster, cheaper and more accurately than timber framing workers, freeing up carpenters to focus on building buildings.
Despite his focus on automation, Claypool insists he’s not trying to force anyone out of a job. “Automation is not replacing jobs. It’s filling the gap,” she told CNN.
AUAR charges developers by the square foot for manufacturing wood panels for homes. First, architects submit building plans to AUAR, and its software, Master Builder, uses AI to calculate the number of panels needed and the exact amount of wood the developer needs to purchase.
The microfactory will fit into a shipping container and be sent to the construction site along with the operator. Inside the factory, a robotic arm measures, cuts and nails wood into panels up to 22 feet (6.7 meters) long, leaving clearances for windows and doors and drilling holes for wiring and plumbing. A contractor then installs the panels by hand.
One micro-factory can produce panels for a typical home in about a day. Claypool said the process takes a typical timber frame crew four weeks and can produce frames for buildings up to seven stories tall.
Claypool started the company with Jill Retzin in 2019 after working together at the Bartlett School of Architecture, part of University College London, where they focused on automation and technology in architecture.
She says their services are 30% cheaper than a standard timber frame crew and up to 15% cheaper than buying panels from a large factory and transporting them to the job site.
It’s also environmentally friendly, Claypool claims. “Wood is a natural material, which means it bends, twists, and sometimes comes off in sections or has knots,” she explained. The microfactory responds to defects in the wood, calculates how best to process it with available materials, and reduces wood waste.
She added that the precision of the microfactory means the panels fit together tightly, reducing heat loss and increasing energy efficiency in the final home.
AUAR currently operates three microfactories in the US and EU, with five more scheduled to come online this year.
“These innovations were an opportunity a few years ago, but now they’re a necessity. They’re no longer a nice-to-have, they’re key to any construction business model,” David Phillip, chair of the Chartered Building Society’s Digital and Innovation Advisory Committee, who is not involved with AUAR, told CNN.
The UK government has committed to building 1.5 million new homes by 2029. The government says there will be a net addition of 208,600 homes in the UK in the 2024-2025 financial year, down 6% on the previous year.
To meet demand, the UK needs to convert from traditional brick homes to wooden homes, Claypool said.
An evaluation by Bangor University in Wales found that building a wooden house produces 20% less greenhouse gas emissions than a brick house. It’s also faster to build.
The UK government says it plans to “introduce wood into the construction sector through innovative modern methods” and plant more trees to secure wood supplies. However, it turned out that builders and developers were reluctant to use wood, believing it to be less durable than brick and more vulnerable to fire.
In 2019, just 9% of homes built in England were made of wood, compared to 92% in Scotland, where there is a tradition of using wood to build homes, Mr Phillips said.
Philip says one of the big challenges for new technologies like AUAR when expanding in the UK will be countering negative perceptions from both consumers and industry. “The technology and standards are there, but the real barrier is culture. We have deeply ingrained traditional ways of working, so the challenge now is not tools and processes, but people and change.”
Other companies are developing similar approaches. London-based Facit Technologies makes microfactories that produce wooden components on-site for construction projects, while U.S.-based Cubie Technologies makes modular units that each produce different elements of a home. Combine these units to form an even larger setup.
AUAR has raised £7.7 million ($10.3 million) to date and is expanding into the US. The US has a large potential market due to the housing shortage and preference for using wood. In 2024, 94% of single-family homes built in the United States will be made of wood, leaving an estimated housing shortage of 1.5 million to 5.5 million units. The Goldman Sachs report says this shortage is driving up home prices and is “the root of the affordability problem.”
In 2024, AUAR partnered with Rival Holdings, a US-based investment firm specializing in the construction industry. An AUAR representative said the company is “in a growth phase in the U.S. and has several additional new partnerships,” but did not provide further details. Rival Holdings did not respond to a request for comment.
According to AUAR, the company has produced 600,000 square meters (6.5 million square feet) of panels, the equivalent of hundreds of homes, and Claypool hopes to establish 1,000 micro-factories on site by 2030, producing 200,000 homes a year.
For her, housing issues are not just about logistics, materials, and funding.
“Good housing isn’t just a construction issue; it’s a social issue,” Claypool said. “When there is a housing shortage and housing construction is delayed, everything else suffers.”
