Robots? Really? ReFrame Opened My Eyes

With more than 30,000 zoning jurisdictions in the US, the plans an architect hands over leave the trades to work out wire runs, fastener placement, and drilling sequence in the field on every house. Our Co-Founder and CTO Felipe Polido summed it up on The ConTech Exec podcast with Robert Zimmerman: “Every single house that goes up is a one-off prototype.” Our software is built to solve that, generating build instructions and printing them directly on the lumber and sheet goods, so each stud is labeled, the subfloor marks where the light goes, and the electrician finds the hole already drilled where the wire runs.

Felipe also walked through what our robots handle: the dull, dirty, and dangerous framing work, using the same materials every builder relies on. Most construction robots are built for European lumber, and American lumber is far less consistent, prone to twisting and bowing. So we built our own robotic framing system from scratch, designed around the wood we actually build with. The results show up on site, where our three-story triple-decker went from crane on Tuesday to a standing building on Friday.

Felipe was candid that the biggest constraints remain the ones the whole industry faces: permitting, foundations, and inspectors who read the code differently from town to town. He also shared what’s next, as we move out of our 17,000 square foot pilot facility and into FAB1, our new 115,000 square foot fabrication center in Billerica, MA, going from signed lease to operational in about 70 days.