This year the U.S. Department of Energy announced the expansion of its national Advanced Construction Technologies Initiative, underscoring a growing federal commitment to robotics, automation, digital twins, and modular manufacturing as core drivers of sustainable construction. According to the reports, more than 30% of pilot projects in mid- and high-rise construction already integrate robotic systems, from autonomous panel placement to façade-assembly robots and automated control of high-performance building envelopes. This shift has intensified industry-wide discussions about how automation and robotics will reshape the future of sustainable construction in the United States.
“Automation is no longer about isolated machines on a construction site — it’s about buildings behaving as intelligent systems across their entire lifecycle,” says Diana Salamaga, an architectural designer and mechatronics engineer working at the intersection of design, robotics, and intelligent building systems.
Diana holds dual degrees in Architecture and Mechatronics Engineering and presented her interdisciplinary research on adaptive kinetic faсades at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition last year. Her work explores how sensor-driven, robotics-enabled building envelopes can actively regulate energy performance and environmental comfort.
In this interview, Diana discusses how rapid advances in automation, robotics, and AI-driven control systems are transforming U.S. construction practices — from design and fabrication to long-term building operation. Drawing on her research in adaptive kinetic facades and her professional experience in architectural and engineering practice, she explains how intelligent building envelopes can actively regulate energy performance, reduce peak loads, and improve environmental comfort.
— Diana, the recent expansion of the Department of Energy of the Advanced Construction Technologies Initiative signals a national push toward robotics and automation in sustainable construction. With your dual background in Architecture and Mechatronics Engineering and your research on kinetic facades, how do you see this shift influencing U.S. building practices over the next five years?
— This initiative clearly accelerates a transition toward buildings that are faster to deliver, more efficient to operate, and fundamentally smarter. Over the next five years, automation will move from isolated pilot projects into the core of sustainable building practice. We will see a stronger shift toward industrialized construction methods, digitally coordinated workflows, and performance-driven systems.
This includes wider adoption of prefabrication, robotic-assisted construction, and BIM-based automation, all of which enable higher quality, faster delivery, and reduced material waste. Importantly, automation will not stop at construction. It will increasingly extend into building operation, supporting adaptive systems that actively manage energy, comfort, and resilience rather than relying on static design assumptions established at a single point in time.
— What do you think are the most underestimated technological or operational barriers that prevent U.S. construction firms from adopting automation at scale?
— One of the biggest challenges is fragmentation. Project delivery is often divided across disconnected teams and phases, with inconsistent digital standards and limited interoperability between design, fabrication, and construction workflows. This makes it difficult to scale automation beyond isolated experiments.
There are also organizational barriers. Many firms remain risk-averse, and there are still gaps in workforce skills related to automation, robotics, and digital systems. Without internal capacity to implement and maintain these technologies, automation remains peripheral rather than embedded in everyday practice. Overcoming these barriers requires not only technology, but changes in process, culture, and education.
— Your research on kinetic facades explored automation at the building-envelope scale. How has this research shaped your understanding of automation’s role in future sustainable construction, and where do you see the strongest opportunities for impact?
— Treating the envelope as an adaptive system has broadened my design approach: automation is not a mere technological add-on, but an integral strategy that merges architectural innovation with mechatronic control to achieve lean, high-performance buildings at scale. This envelope-scale work points to broader, scalable opportunities for impact in sustainable construction.
The greatest gains will come from life cycle-aware automation – embedding intelligence from the design phase through construction and operation so that buildings continuously optimize performance. Just as important are advances in adaptive control and digital system integration, where IoT-connected envelopes work with heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, and other subsystems via unified digital twin platforms. When combined with data-driven optimization — using sensor feedback and AI to continuously refine system behavior — these approaches position automation as a foundational strategy for delivering scalable, high-performance, and sustainable buildings.
— Your research on adaptive kinetic facades sits at the intersection of architecture, robotics, and energy systems. How do you envision robotics-enabled envelopes contributing to sustainable construction goals such as embodied carbon reduction, lifecycle efficiency, and peak-load management?
— Robotic envelopes transform the facade into an active environmental regulator, contributing to lower embodied carbon, improved lifecycle efficiency, and smarter energy management. By actively regulating solar gain, daylight, and heat transfer, adaptive kinetic facades can reduce peak “heating, ventilation, air conditioning” capacity requirements, which lowers embodied carbon associated with mechanical systems.
From a lifecycle perspective, these envelopes enable continuous optimization rather than static design for worst-case conditions. This reduces long-term energy use, limits unnecessary system wear, and supports more efficient maintenance over the building’s lifespan. In terms of peak-load management, robotics-enabled facades can anticipate and moderate demand spikes through adaptive shading and thermal control, easing stress on building systems and supporting grid efficiency.
— As someone who bridges architectural thinking with engineering and robotics, what new skill sets will architects and engineers need as automation becomes standard in sustainable construction?
— Architects and engineers will increasingly need to think in terms of integrated systems rather than isolated components. This means developing fluency in BIM, parametric design, performance simulation, and data-driven workflows, alongside a working understanding of robotics, automated fabrication, and sensor-enabled building systems.
The ability to collaborate across disciplines within shared digital environments is also important. Automation demands that architectural vision, structural logic, mechanical performance, and control systems be developed together across the building lifecycle. The future professional is not defined by a single discipline, but by the ability to connect them.
— If you could advise U.S. construction leaders today, what would be your top recommendation on preparing their organizations for a future where automation, robotics, and intelligent envelopes are the norm?
— The most important step is to invest in integration rather than treating automation as a standalone technology upgrade. Robotics and intelligent building systems deliver value only when design, fabrication, and operation are aligned around shared digital models and performance goals.
Construction leaders should focus on building internal capacity in digital coordination, prefabrication workflows, and systems integration, while fostering closer collaboration between architects, engineers, and operations teams. This also requires delivery models that support early coordination, shared risk, and lifecycle-oriented decision-making. Automation is not just about new tools — it’s about rethinking how we design, build, and operate buildings as coherent, intelligent systems.
