Current trends and future directions of free-form building technology

Abstract

Recently, three-dimensional design and computerized numeric control shaping technology have been applied to most free-form buildings, and materials like iron, timber, expanded polystyrene, and textiles have been used in formwork. However, these techniques have been found to incur costs at least 10 times the budgeted amounts, in most cases because the forms or moulds used to produce free-form concrete segments were used only once and could not be recycled, and it took a lot of time and workers to produce them, resulting in reduced productivity and increased construction cost and time. To solve these problems, this study investigates the status of free-form concrete buildings and suggests directions for future technology development. Following these suggestions would enable manageable construction cost and time in the future design of free-form buildings.