Dry and Liquid Clay Mix for Bioshotcrete

“Bioshotcrete” is a new technology being developed by a team of robotic experts, architects, engineers, and drones’ specialists, aiming at using drones in the construction industry to spray natural materials over a temporary light formwork until a self-standing shell is completed. This technique consists in projecting paste-like matter composed of clay mixes following precise and customized deposition sequences over a temporary formwork, incorporating computational techniques in the design and fabrication stages, therefore proposing a more sustainable version of shotcrete. In particular, this paper features experiments using drones for spraying wet and dry ranges of clay mixes over a reusable inflatable formwork with the purpose to build monolithic earthen shells. The featured case studies propose specific protocols to control different deposition sequences, describing the proper formulation of clay mixes, the design and production of customized spraying devices, and fitting options in the drone allowing to vary pressure and other drone spraying parameters. The development of Bioshotcrete using robotic fabrication strategies could help expand and transform existing construction methods and processes to be applied at large scale, therefore incorporating innovative digital fabrication protocols towards a more sustainable building construction realm.