The nature of construction has remained intensely  manual throughout recorded history. Unlike in  manufacturing, the growth of automation in  construction has been slow. A promising new  automation approach is Contour Crafting (CC).  Invented by Behrokh Khoshnevis, Contour Crafting  is a mega-scale fabrication process aiming at automated  construction of whole structures as well as subcomponents.  The potential of CC became evident from  investigations and experiments with materials and  geometries. Using this process, a single house or a  colony of houses may be constructed automatically in  a single run with all plumbing and electrical utilities  imbedded in each house; yet each could be a different  design. The implication is especially profound for emergency shelter construction and low income housing. NASA is exploring possible application of CC in  building on other planets. This new mode of  construction will be one of the very few feasible  approaches for building on planets such as Moon and  Mars, which are being targeted for human colonization  before the end of the century. CC has received  international attention and may soon  revolutionize the construction industry.  For more information please visit www.ContourCrafting.org

Behrokh Khoshnevis is a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and is the Director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) and the Director of Manufacturing Engineering Program. He is active in CAD/CAM, robotics, and mechatronics related research and development projects that include the development of three novel Solid Free Form (Rapid Prototyping) processes called Contour Crafting, SIS and MPM, a technology for automated construction of housing structures, development of mechatronics systems for biomedical applications (e.g., restorative dentistry, rehabilitation engineering, and tactile sensing devices), autonomous mobile and modular robots for assembly applications on earth and in space, and automated equipment for oil (petroleum) and gas industries. He has several major inventions which have been either commercialized or are in the commercialization process. He has also been closely involved in several product development processes. His educational activity at USC includes the teaching of a graduate course on Invention and Technology Development and he routinely conducts lectures and seminars on the subject of invention. He is a Fellow member of the Society for Computer Simulation, a Fellow member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and and a senior member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Dr. Khoshnevis’ inventions have received extensive worldwide publicity in acclaimed media such as New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Der Spiegel, New Scientist, The Age and national and international television and radio networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Discovery channels of US, Canada, Germany and BBC World News. Contour Crafting was recently selected as one of top 25 out of more than 4000 candidate inventions by the History Channel Modern Marvels program and the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame