How the Use of Drones is Transforming Architecture

You’ve heard this before – drones are changing the way we live from a higher point of view. Literally! The age of drones is here. They’re fast. They’re extremely good at maneuvers. They can give you the view you can’t see. That’s because you don’t have those rotor blades on you. In architecture, drones have a crucial role to play. More engineers, developers and architects have realized how useful this little UAV can be. Today, most architectural projects are planning to involve their participation. They’re already in use in mapping and planning everywhere. From construction to supervision to inspection – drones are shaping the way we look at things and naturally, the way things look.

1. View Representation

How would you show how the view would be from the 20th floor? You naturally can’t do it from a helicopter or a plane, because manned aerial vehicles aren’t allowed to fly too low. Most architects in the past had two options – use a nearby building of similar height to get a photograph or photoshop the image to look surreal. Today, technology has provided them with a third option – drones. All it takes is a skilled pilot to raise the drone through twenty floors of expected height before one can capture that stunning view of a city skyline.

2. Survey

I used to always think of drones as fast and sleek as these high speed hoverboards. Turns out, architects think of them similarly too! In recent times, it is increasingly common for architects and engineers to use the services of quadcopters to survey high rise buildings or large construction areas – before and after work has begun. Aerial surveys are really useful when it comes to constructions which span over acres. It also becomes practically impossible to get an entire stretch surveyed manually, so drones are a planner’s best bid. Check out some popular drones with camera which could be of help.

3. In Construction

In 2012, students from ETH Zurich teamed up with Swiss architecture firm Gramazio Kohler Architects and Raffaello D’Andrea, a distinguished roboticist to use a fleet of drones to stack up thousands of bricks on the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France. Likewise, researchers have been experimenting with the use of drones in construction for quite some time. Drones tend to be more accurate than humans or human operated cranes. This ultimately helps builders get a perfect building, which, as you may have guessed would be much stronger and more aesthetic. Perhaps, sometime in the future, we can all rely less on manpower as these brilliant drones get the job done right.

4. Doing the Fix

Drones are supposed to be good for repairs. At least, that’s exactly what researchers want to do with them. Like construction, it is getting increasingly easy to fix a broken tile or get a broken wall fixed with a drone. All you need to do is press a button and the drone executes the program installed in it. It’s not much trouble, just as easy as operating these drift RC cars. So, you can relax on your Sundays while your drone does the job for you! No more falling off the roof! And if that’s not all, you can also use your drone to check for any damages on the structure of your construction. That’s really useful for people who live in societies or residential groups – all you need is a drone!

Well, drones are amazing. They are smooth, wonderful assistants for our day to day activities. It takes less effort and lesser money to get one, yet the effects are extremely economical. If you’re into architecture or even if you’re not, this small list of ways drones can be the future of construction may have impressed you – and why not? If they continue to be developed at this rate, we can all relax in our homes sometime in the future – in homes built by drones!