Archive for year: 2019

Netled Oy, Finnish specialists in vertical farming systems and greenhouse lighting solutions, have signed a long-term framework agreement with Astwood Infrastructure to supply equipment for industrial scale vertical farms.

The agreement covers an initial four such farms, based predominantly in the UK, to be delivered over the next three years and provides a framework for serving global customers. The total value of the agreement, including all project options, reaches over 10 million euros. The rapidly growing vertical farming market has been predicted to grow to 10 billion USD by 2025. 

Niko Kivioja, CEO, Netled Oy, confirmed: “We have been developing our technology for vertical farming for several years now. During this time the market for vertical farming has developed very fast. Now the technology and the economic figures are in the point, where industrial scale vertical farms beat the traditional ways to grow leafy greens. Green field projects require quite massive design work for infrastructure. We are more than happy to present our partner, Astwood Infrastructure. Together we have possibility to serve global market with an all-inclusive project offering.”

Netled designs, manufactures and sells world leading technology, equipment and related automation and software for vertical farming, where its vertical farm Vera® is the most advanced vertical farming system in the world.

Astwood Infrastructure is a technology company with a focus on sustainable design and engineering. The company has significant know-how in commercialising technologies. For vertical farming, the company has developed its own brand, Vertivore, based on 3 years’ worth of research into the sector. Astwood will be working with specialist technology providers like Netled to build a position as a market leading operator and supplier of vertical farm solutions.

A pilot facility, the first under the framework, is built and is in continuous use in Redditch, UK. The long-term focus of Netled and Astwood is on industrial scale growing. The production volumes are planned to be millions of heads of lettuces and herbs annually.

Mike Capewell, CEO for Astwood Infrastructure, added: “We are incredibly excited about our new agreement with Netled Oy and the opportunity we now have in building and scaling a UK wide and potentially global vertical farm operation. Our pilot farm has shown some incredibly exciting results and we feel optimistic that we will be able to replicate this success at scale.”

“As issues like rising import costs and climate change continue to advance, vertical farming systems will become critical to production, where, through the Vertivore brand, we will be able to grow sustainable, local and clean produce without being impacted by any external sources such as weather conditions or pollution.”

Closed vertical farming systems, like the one currently being piloted by Astwood, are protected from extreme weather conditions, pollution and lack of freshwater resources as the growing conditions are created artificially. As a result, vertical farming makes cultivation possible in areas where production of traditional vegetables is impossible, and the freshwater resources are limited, whilst also improving quality, production speed and yield.

Source: Urbab Ag News

The Guardian recently reported on the worlds largest roof top urban farm due to open next year in Paris –Click here for the story

The government has invited businesses to bid in two competitions worth up to £36m to fund collaborative R&D and demonstrator projects.

Both competitions focus on modern methods of construction, digital and whole-asset performance. UK Research and Innovation is providing the funding through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s Transforming Construction Challenge.

The two competitions are as follows:

Competition 1: Transforming UK construction – collaborative R&D.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £10m in UK businesses undertaking collaborative research and development projects. Projects should go beyond the state-of-the-art in improving productivity, quality and performance of the UK construction sector.

The project must focus on one or more of the following themes:

• Digital information management, tools, systems and standards;
• Modern methods of construction and platform-based approaches;
• Whole-life asset performance, including active buildings;
• Business models, procurement, analytics, benchmarking and metrics;
• Financial, assurance, warranty and lending products.

To lead a project your organisation must:

• Be a UK registered business of any size or a research and technology organisation;
• Collaborate with other businesses, research organisations, public sector organisations, academic institutions or charities;
• Include at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise;
• Carry out the project work in the UK;
• Intend to exploit the results from, or in, the UK.

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £150,000 and £1.5m.

Competition 2: Transforming UK construction demonstrator projects.

UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £26m for practical, demonstrator projects in modern methods of construction, digital and whole-life asset performance. This competition aims to invest in approximately ten world-leading practical demonstrators. They must establish improvements in productivity, quality and performance of the UK construction sector.

Demonstrators are the application of approaches, deployed at scale, that aim to improve all aspects of a built assets lifecycle. These will include:

• Validations of new business models;
• Digital approaches to design, construction and management;
• Advancements in modern methods of construction;
• Approaches to whole-life performance of a building or assets;

Both competitions open on 28 August, and close at midday on 30 October.

Source: Infracstructure Intelligence

The local council in Worthing, West Sussex, aims to be the first to bring modular homes built by a joint venture between Ikea and Skanska to the UK.

Worthing Borough Council said it was looking to enter an agreement with BoKlok to deliver up to 162 homes at Fulbeck Avenue in west Worthing.

As part of the deal, the Council would retain control of 30% of the units for social housing.

Analysis by the Council indicated that its West Durrington estate site could provide 45 homes using a traditional design approach with 13 classed as affordable. But BoKlok claims to be able to treble the number of homes on the site.

The report also recommended that Worthing Borough Council agree to work in collaboration with BoKlok to develop a wider programme to deliver 500 new homes for Worthing residents.

After being backed by senior councillors, a steering group is set to be established to guide the proposal forward. The first homes could be occupied within two years.
Councillor Kevin Jenkins, Worthing Borough Council’s executive member for regeneration, said: “I very much welcome this innovative proposal from a ground-breaking international firm which could bring real benefits to hundreds of local families.”

“In this current market it’s extremely tough for local people who are in full-time work to get on the housing market. This proposal could change that, giving these hard-working individuals a genuine chance to buy their own home without having to move out of the town.”

“The fact these homes can be built quickly, to a high quality and meet top environmental standards makes this an extremely attractive proposition and I look forward to the Council working closely with BoKlok moving forward.”

A spokesman for BoKlok said: “BoKlok is a sustainable, low-cost housing concept, jointly owned by Skanska and IKEA AB. It currently operates in Sweden, Norway and Finland and is now exploring the UK market for potential sites for BoKlok developments, initially in the south and west of the country. However, we have nothing to confirm at this point in time.”

Source: Structural Timber

Approximately 20% of construction costs are wrapped up in fixing errors. Barcelona-based Scaled Robotics wants to minimize the rework by automating progress monitoring with autonomous mobile robots.

Leveraging lidar and autonomous vehicle technology (similar to what’s used by Google cars to map the world), Scaled Robotics built a WALL-E doppelgänger to navigate and build maps of construction sites by fusing images, video and data captured by its robots.

The company was born out of frustration, “of not having the tools to build what we designed in the office,” says co-founder Stuart Maggs, whose background is in construction and architecture. “You spend a lot of time in the office, creating this vision of what you wanted, that you thought was right, but ultimately, it came down to a guy in the field with just a tape measure and a piece of chalk that will put things pretty much however he felt on that day.” 

Their robots have been deployed in various construction sites around the world, including Dura Vermeer in the Netherlands and Kier in the U.K. Maggs says he found it surprisingly easy to convince the construction industry of the robot’s value — arguing there’s a real need for what it delivers: High-resolution comparison of the digital model to the on-the-ground build site that helps build managers keep close track of progress and spot problems before they can scale into costly expenses. The bot is a multifaceted tool for efficiency, he adds.

In the beginning, workers on site were a bit hesitant, but after numerous jokes and picture-taking, Maggs, said in closing, “they just accept it as another tool on the construction site.”

Source: Techcrunch