Mid-rise housing units, or the so-called “missing middle” housing is key to sustainable development of cities and tackling the affordability crisis. Mid-rise housing allows to add dense housing units where they’re most needed, in urban centres. Currently mid-rise housing is mainly constructed using concrete. While there is huge market demand for more sustainable mid-rise, the industry is currently not capable to deliver these in timber and bio-materials at scale. The 14-month project, kicking off in January 2025, will allow the team at AUAR to develop a first of its kind mid-rise prototype for testing, with a clear performance evaluation, and meet regulatory requirements.

Innovate UK’s Smart programme provides exceptional support to specifically UK-based SMEs and where applicable any UK-based partners in developing world-class, genuinely new and novel ground-breaking innovations designed for rapid, successful commercialisation following project completion. The grant is part of an investment of £25 million in the best game-changing and world-leading ideas, designed for swift, successful commercialisation.

“Delivering mid-rise housing has been our strategic goal from the outset,” said Mollie Claypool, Co-Founder and CEO of AUAR. “Our customers are preparing for a radical shift in construction, with a huge demand for affordable sustainable mid-rise homes, combined with challenges of a shrinking labour force and raising construction costs. The Innovate UK grant will help us accelerate our mid-rise programme and help us enter the market quicker with this”

AUAR is building an automated construction platform for sustainable housing. The Robotic Micro-factories developed by AUAR are a breakthrough technology for an industry struggling with a lack of skilled labour and low productivity. These compact, mobile pop-up factories combine robotics with proprietary software to automate the design and construction process, significantly reducing the time and labour costs associated with traditional building methods. Each Micro-factory is capable of producing modular timber-frame panels for walls, floors and roofs which can be quickly assembled on-site to create a variety of home designs.

“AUAR will play a pivotal role in scaling the delivery of mid-rise timber housing,” said Gilles Retsin, Co-Founder and CTO of AUAR. “Our micro-factories radically simplify the complexities of timber construction, allowing builders to manufacture on-site or close to the site, which significantly reduces risks and logistical bottlenecks. This approach presents an exciting opportunity for existing manufacturers and builders to expand their capacity and access this growing market, ultimately enabling thousands of mid-rise timber housing units to be built more quickly.”

The Innovate UK grant comes at an exciting time for the company as AUAR has recently announced the expansion of operations to North America, with the first shipment of its robotic micro-factories to the US to help address the ongoing housing crisis in the country.

Unlike existing solutions, AUAR’s Micro-Factories don’t require big factories to be set up and have a quick lead time of 12 weeks from order to shipping. The Micro-Factories are shipped in standard containers, with all the required components pre-assembled for quick deployment. AUAR offers a flexible, No CapEx ‘hardware-as-a-service’ model for their pop-up Robotic Micro-Factories so their partners can quickly get set up without large capital expenses. AUAR remote-support partners with its AI-powered software all the way from design to manufacturing, automating thousands of hours of inefficient, manual processes in the home building process.

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