Foster+Partners joins €4 million UK wooden structure project

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Architecture firm Foster + Partners has joined the SWIFT-BUILD research project, led by the University of Bristol. The project, with total funding of €4 million (£3.4 million), aims to construct multi-storey timber buildings in a top-down manner using autonomous robot swarms.

According to the project plan, SWIFT-BUILD will use ground-based robotic assembly equipment and lifting devices to fabricate upper components near ground level and hoist them into place, allowing further components to be built beneath them. This three-year project will deploy collaborative robots and lifting equipment to advance construction in the reverse order of traditional methods: construction begins at the roof, and as the building structure rises, subsequent sections are added beneath it, with the building itself serving as its own scaffolding. Throughout the process, sensors and artificial intelligence will continuously monitor loads and adjust the structural geometry.

The research team plans to use the system to autonomously construct a standalone multi-storey timber pavilion, while also producing long-span components such as ceilings and complete room modules. Foster + Partners will receive €385,000 from the project's €3.996 million grant. Other consortium members include the University of Birmingham, as well as universities from Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. SWIFT-BUILD is expected to launch in October and run until September 2029.

A second project, the "Platform for Autonomous Robotic Housing" (PTAH), led by the University of Sheffield, combines on-site robotic micro-factories with semi-autonomous cranes, mobile robotic arms, and climbing robots. The project aims to keep the cost of automated housing construction affordable and compatible with existing industry practices.

A network of digital twins within the PTAH system will monitor work progress in real time, while an "adaptive sequencer" will determine how tasks are allocated and sequenced between robots and human operators. The consortium plans to demonstrate the technology by building a two-storey timber pavilion and testing the robots' ability to retrofit and dismantle structures so that structural components can be reused. The project has received €3.994 million in EU funding and will run from September 2026 to August 2029.

The team led by the University of Sheffield also includes Bristol-based Automated Architecture, Space Solar Engineering company based in Berkshire, Delft University of Technology, Fraunhofer, and Spain's National Research Council.

Both projects are part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) 2025 Pathfinder Challenges programme. In this round, the programme allocated €118 million to 30 early-stage research projects, selected from 647 eligible proposals, with an acceptance rate of less than 5%. Among the 30 selected projects, 8 focus on autonomous robot swarms for construction, with SWIFT-BUILD and PTAH being the only two UK-led projects. The remaining projects cover climate-adaptive crops, generative AI for cancer treatment, and technologies for converting waste into fuels, chemicals, and materials.

The construction-focused portfolio also includes research on prefabricated aerial robots, robotic volumetric cutting, and swarm assembly of modular timber structures. EIC Pathfinder grants provide up to €4 million in funding for high-risk research on emerging technologies, typically advancing ideas from preliminary research to proof-of-concept stage.