It’s a revolution through images, text and videos. With a simple written or voice request — and not lines of code! — Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) are disrupting the man-machine relationship. In focus: productivity and efficiency gains in all sectors of activity. And sustainable construction is no exception. THE GenAI are indeed particularly valuable in optimizing the design of buildings and improving their energy efficiency. From the design of materials to the life phase of buildings, AI is now everywhere.
Intelligent design: AI as an architect of sustainability
For example: how to choose the most appropriate materials for a project while respecting sustainability objectives? Thanks to their in-depth analysis capacity, Generative AI can assess the environmental impact of materials, their cost, their availability, adjust the shape and orientation of a building to maximize natural sunlight, test the resistance of structures or adapt to the preferences and specific needs of users… The economic benefits of such an approach are enormous.
Saint-Gobain is also exploring the potential of this new ally to model and design the materials and solutions of tomorrow, from the circular economy and designed from their design to be recyclable. « With the generalization of circularity, we will reuse materials from various sources which will become inputs into our recipes »indicates Renaud Jahan, CIO Innovation of the Group. AI would make it possible to adjust solution formulations at will depending on the incoming raw materials. “Let’s take the gypsum that currently comes out of our mines, it’s a bit like the flour you buy in the supermarket. It is calibrated and therefore always identical. Now imagine collecting leftover flour from here and there and mixing it all together. You won’t necessarily have the same flour in the end and you may no longer master your favorite recipes as well. In this case, the AI could revise the formula of your flour mix to allow you to get exactly the flour you are used to buying. Same result for gypsum made from recycled materials. »
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Optimized production: when AI controls factories
Beyond the “cooking” of materials, AI could also create a factory of the future built around machine learning. At Saint-Gobain, predictive modeling is for example used by the High Performance Solutions businesses to optimize the operation of furnaces in the production of fiberglass.
« Imagine ovens that can automatically adjust their settings for maximum efficiency, including energy consumption and waste. This is already a reality in certain Group factories.», Specifies Renaud Jahan. This ability to anticipate not only avoids quality defects, but also continuously optimizes the production process. The result: lower energy consumption and less waste.
On the plasterboard side, AI could calculate optimal board placement to minimize cutting and waste. It could even orchestrate the pre-cutting of panels in the factory according to a precise digital model. Result ? Delivery to site in a ready-to-install “assembly kit” style. This saves considerable time during installation, as well as significantly reducing waste and energy used during construction. The icing on the cake is that scrap materials could be immediately recycled in the factory, thus closing the loop of optimized and sustainable production.
Smart buildings: AI to bring structures to life
And buildings themselves could well become intelligent thanks to AI.
Imagine a building that knows that Friday is less busy than Tuesday or Thursday. Thanks to predictive models, its connected systems could adapt, at any given moment, VMC, air conditioning and thus energy consumption. This optimization would rely on intelligently collected data, such as the number of Wi-Fi connections, for example.
Platforms like Honeywell Forge have already grasped the challenge and are using machine learning to optimize heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in real time. Result: the energy efficiency of buildings increases at the same time as the comfort of their occupants.
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Even more impressive is ARIA (Artificial Responsive Intelligent Assistant), developed by Canadian company BrainBox AI. It analyses, advises and automates certain tasks related to the life of the building. Anticipation of needs and potential problems, recommendations to optimize energy efficiency and occupant comfort, interaction with users by text or voice command, on computer or mobile device… Reality catches up with fiction.
AI could even push boundaries until their end of life. Simulate the optimal deconstruction of a building and predict with which materials can be recovered and how to reintegrate them into new projects! Enough to transform demolition into an intelligent “disassembly” process, maximizing the potential for reuse and recycling.
Artificial intelligence is emerging as a powerful tool for designing the buildings of tomorrow that are more efficient, more durable and more comfortable. But let’s not forget that behind each algorithm, each predictive model, there is human expertise. AI is there to assist, not to replace. And its effectiveness will always depend on the quality of the data provided to it and the relevance of the questions asked. The future of construction will therefore be a collaboration between human intelligence and artificial intelligence, in the service of a more sustainable world.
AI-generated cover image.
