Construction news: A bricklaying robot will replace bricklayers, there is a boom in small mobile homes

A strong and tireless mechanical hand that replaces the entire bricklayer’s crew. The visitors of this year’s Construction Fair in Brno viewed the functional bricklaying robot. “The task of the machine is to help with tons of bricks, which otherwise people have to stack manually on the construction site,” Matěj Jurečka from the Wienerberger company introduced the robot.

The machine works essentially without breaks, it does not eat or drink anything. Other advantages are supposed to be faultless accuracy. It is enough for the builders to level the first row of masonry, the pattern of accuracy and any unevenness of the base plate. Then you just need to program the robot, give it data about the parameters of the wall, it keeps the plane thanks to the laser. According to Jurečka, the expert only supervises safety.

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The technological novelty has pilot constructions behind it, and is currently working on larger construction projects with a simpler floor plan, where its power is the most advantageous and efficient from the builders’ side. “This means industrial buildings, production halls, but also hospitals, schools, shopping centers. They have already used our company’s services, for example, for the interior lining of a hall in Šumperk,” explained Jurečka.

Masonry of the future?

According to him, the bricklaying robot can independently clean and settle essentially one entire pallet, eighty bricks, every half hour during masonry. Up to a height of more than three meters from the base of the masonry. No scaffolding. “He also moves his base, that is, he walks,” described Jurečka.

Visitor and builder Václav from Břeclavsk looked at the robot in disbelief in the hall at the Brno exhibition grounds. “I worked on construction sites for twenty-five years. It hurts my arms and shoulders. I can’t imagine a robot on a construction site, but it is real. The machine looks interesting, supposedly it can do everything for bricklaying. If it can work really precisely and the maintenance of the machine will not be complicated, then why not,” commented the older man.

Masonry robot at the construction fair in Brno 2024.Source: Diary/Přemysl Spévák

The company is already working on a version for the future construction of family and apartment buildings. The limitation is the layout where the robot can fit or the type of material, it currently works with two types of bricks, 24 and 30 centimeters thick.

Tiny house beckons

The construction fair and Festival of Architecture in Brno lasts until Saturday. According to its director Martin Škarka, in addition to new technologies, it also presents trends in housing, architecture and innovations in garden exteriors. “We are building on last year’s interest in modular residential buildings. Visitors are very interested in tiny houses, small mobile homes on wheels. People line up to see them. They are obviously interested in simple and quick housing, without a complex building permit,” said Škarka.

Exhibitors of energy saving systems are also popular in Brno this year. A novelty is the pilot year of the competition for university students – a construction hackathon on the topic of affordable housing.