Foster + Partners wins €4 million EU grant to develop autonomous timber construction robots

Architecture practices have been talking about construction automation for years. Foster + Partners just put €4 million of European research funding behind it. The London studio's three-year project, called SWIFT-Build, will develop a swarm of autonomous robots and drones that assemble timber structures on site, with AI coordinating the sequence. Academic institutions are co-researchers on the grant, which comes from the European Innovation Council's Pathfinder programme. A construction-ready system, if the research succeeds, arrives at minimum in 2029 or 2030, and contract language around professional responsibility for AI-coordinated site work will need to develop well before that.