Greener timber construction using AI

Carlo Ratti from Carlo Ratti Associati launched a new start-up along with Cambridge graduate Mykola Murashko called Maestro, which aims to reduce the waste in the production of mass timber, for greener timber construction.

With their project A.I. Timber, the start-up claims to be able to reduce waste from the manufacturing process of CLT by up to 30% using AI technology. Instead of reducing irregular trees into uniform straight lines, which produces waste, which is typical in CLT manufacturing, AI Timber maintains the varied shapes of tries. Using a combination of AI and digital machining tools, it first scans the raw timber logs. These logs are then flat sawed into irregular boards. Software is then used to identify the optimum sequence to fit them together, reducing the amount of waste.

Normally, one cubic metre (35 cubic ft) of CLT requires around 2.75 cubic metres (97 cubic ft) of logs to produce, while the new method would require only 1.9 cubic metres (67 cubic ft) for the same amount.

In addition to reduce wood waste, “the irregular geometry celebrates the original shape of the tree.”

Photos: Carlo Ratti Associati