Discrete Automation

Globally, the built environment is inequitable. And while construction automation is often heralded as the solution to labor shortages and the housing crisis, such methods tend to focus on technology, neglecting the wider socioeconomic contexts. Automated Architecture (AUAR), a spinoff of AUAR Labs at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, asserts that a values-centered, decentralized approach to automation centered around local communities can begin to address this material hegemony. The paper introduces and discusses AUAR’s platform-based framework, Discrete Automation, which subverts the status quo of automation that excludes those who are already disadvantaged into an inclusive network capable of providing solutions to both the automation gap and the assembly problem. Through both the wider context of existing modular housing platforms and issues of the current use of automated technologies in architectural production, Discrete Automation is discussed through the example of Block Type A, a discrete timber building system, which in conjunction with its combinatorial app constitutes the base of a community-led housing platform developed by AUAR. Built case studies are introduced alongside a discussion of the applied methodologies and an outlook on the platform’s potential for scalability in an equitable, sustainable manner.