WOJCIECH ODROBINA

Technology in Architecture

Wojciech Odrobina, the renowned architect, tells us a bit more about the technology that we have available today in the construction industry and they facilitate architecture in an incredible way.

The technology that is available today in the construction industry has managed to reduce construction times, through structures and materials that allow building with speed.

Architecture has always been defined by the technology available at the time, from the simplest, empirically built with the elements available in a rural area, to the skyscrapers that change the structure of the most famous cities, thanks to technological advances and man's creativity, achieving buildings of inconceivable proportions in the past, such as the Burj Khalifa, with its 828 meters high. But never, at any time in history, has architecture been governed as it is today by technology.

Technological advances not only allow us to make large buildings or structures, or obtain a better urban design, now that "sustainable" projects are in fashion.

The technology that has been developed today and that is available in the construction industry, has managed to reduce construction times considerably, through structures and materials, where the prefabrication and industrialization of elements such as slabs, beams and columns, as well as facades and coatings, has reduced the work done on the site, so that we build with such speed, that we see very large changes in the appearance of cities.

On the other hand, architecture has become less permanent and buildings are intended to live 40 or 50 years, due to the ease of replacing them and the versatility that real estate development demands today.

A quality design reduces energy costs and minimizes costs - Wojciech Odrobina

Today we see buildings with highly dynamic and irregular geometries, which are only possible thanks to technological advances in both design and construction.

In design, CAD (Computer Assisted Drawing) has evolved into BIM (Building Information Modeling) with which a three-dimensional model is developed that simulates the building to be built with such precision and detail, that we can visualize and represent each component of the construction.

Wojciech Odrobina says that thanks to all these technological advances, there is a simpler, faster and easier way to conceptualize, model, build and manufacture complex and irregular elements and structures that in the past were impossible to reproduce and carry out in a construction