{"id":59186,"date":"2026-08-04T12:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/?post_type=news&p=59186"},"modified":"2026-08-04T12:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:31:34","slug":"uf-lab-opening","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/en\/news\/uf-lab-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Autodesk and the University of Florida open the most advanced robotics industrialized construction lab in the US to tackle housing and labor shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"

A $1 million donation from Autodesk will fund the equipment, renovations, and technical support behind the new Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory at the University of Florida, helping prepare students for careers in industrialized construction, an industry where 41% of today\u2019s workforce nears retirement by 2031. The local workforce pipeline will be prime to help address the shortage of more than 121,000 homes and rental units in Florida.<\/em>  <\/span>The most advanced robotics lab in the US dedicated to industrialized construction opens its doors this fall semester at the University of Florida, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony held today, aimed at three converging challenges: Florida can’t build homes fast enough to stay affordable, an estimated 41% of construction workers will be at or near retirement by 2031*, and hurricane-hit communities wait years to rebuild. In early testing, robots developed by the lab’s research team point to the possibility of framing a set of houses in a weekend instead of months.  <\/span>The Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory opens with a $1 million unrestricted donation from Autodesk, announced today by EVP & COO and University of Florida alum Steve Blum and becomes the new home of Dr. Aladdin Alwisy’s Smart Industrialized Design and Construction (IDC) Lab, spanning UF’s College of Design, Construction and Planning (DCP) and Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering (HWCOE). The gift builds on Autodesk’s $1.5 million investment in 2024, which helped launch the University’s first-of-its-kind Industrialized Construction Engineering (“ICon”) degree program, now welcoming its first cohort this fall. <\/span>“The future of construction is in the hands of people in roles that don’t fully exist yet. Every piece of technology we’re building goes through rigorous testing and simulation in this lab first, allowing us to refine the details so that when it reaches a real jobsite some day, our work will help people build smarter, safer, and faster. This lab gives our students the space to do that work first-hand, and to help create the jobs that will come with it.” – Dr. Aladdin Alwisy, Associate Professor and Lab Director <\/span><\/p>\n

\"The

The Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory will be housed within the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning’s Bruno E. and Maritza F. Ramos Collaboratory, which will host the University’s inaugural International Conference on Industrialized Construction (IConIC 2026) on August 3-5.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

\u201cThe College of Design, Construction and Planning is most grateful for Autodesk’s tremendous support for the Industrialized Construction program and the naming of the Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory. This is a unique partnership that will leverage advanced technologies to transform the construction industry and enhance its productivity, safety, quality, and sustainability. The work done in the Autodesk Lab will develop new research outputs for the industry and enable our students to be better prepared for the future.\u201d – Dean Chimay Anumba, College of Design, Construction and Planning<\/p>\n

What does this mean for Florida’s housing shortage and construction workforce?<\/h3>\n

Florida is short more than 121,000 homes and rental units, according to UF’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. Industrialized construction, which moves homebuilding into factory settings using robotics, digital twins, and modular assembly, is one of the few approaches that can add capacity faster than the labor pool is shrinking.  <\/span>Meanwhile, the interest in industrialized construction careers from the next generation is growing. In fact, Autodesk’s AI Jobs Report<\/a> found that more than 66% of students want careers where they make things or work with their hands, up six points from 2024. Meanwhile, Autodesk\u2019s State of Design & Make Report<\/a> found that 61% of professionals say new employees with the right technical skills are difficult to find, and another 58% say the lack of skilled talent is a barrier to their company’s growth. This lab exists to close that gap, training students for roles across the $2 trillion US construction industry. <\/p>\n

How is this different from other construction robotics research?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While many university labs study construction robotics, the University of Florida\u2019s new lab is dedicated specifically to industrialized construction: collaborative robots (“cobots”) handle the heavy, repetitive work of framing walls and assembling panels, while people focus on quality, judgment calls, and the tasks that require hands-on expertise, alleviating future workers from the most injury-prone jobs on a site. It builds on six years of Dr. Alwisy’s research in human-robot collaboration, spanning multi-functional robots, digital twins, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies for off-site and modular building.  <\/span>Graduate researcher Frank Xie is one of several students bringing this vision to life, building a computer vision system, using digital twins modeled in Autodesk Fusion, that allows robots to “see” a construction design and translate it into real-world assembly. It’s early-stage work that offers a glimpse into what the new lab is designed to accelerate as more students gain hands-on access to the space. <\/p>\n

How does this fit into Autodesk’s broader commitment to the future workforce?<\/h3>\n

In June, Autodesk announced a $350 million, three-year workforce and education commitment<\/a> to give 60 million more students and educators free access to its professional technology, train nearly one million people in AI-powered workflows, and help more than 200,000 earn industry-recognized certifications. Today’s announcement and the new lab arrive on the heels of that broader three-year commitment, continuing Autodesk’s investment in preparing students for the future of work. <\/span>“Florida is on the front lines of two of the biggest challenges facing this country: an affordable housing shortage and a construction workforce that isn’t growing fast enough to meet demand. The University of Florida\u2019s industrialized construction engineering program and this new robotics lab are training students to solve both problems at once with technology that lets them build faster, safer, and smarter. This is the kind of hands-on, industry-ready education that impacts both students and employers, and we want to help scale it everywhere. And as a proud Gator, this is a chance to give back to the place where I got my start.” – Steve Blum, Chief Operating Officer, Autodesk<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/h3>\n

The ICon program welcomes its first cohort of students this fall, combining industry expertise, AI-powered technical skills, and hands-on training for new hybrid roles that pair building expertise with digital fluency. Dr. Alwisy expects to move the lab’s technology toward real-world deployment over the next several years.  <\/span>* The National Center for Construction Education and Research<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

$1 million Autodesk donation funds robotics and workforce training at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":59248,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[514,6,321,20,18,29,295,309],"adsk_tags":[446,431,438],"class_list":["post-59186","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categories-business-transformation","categories-construction","categories-education","categories-future_of_work","categories-impact","categories-our_company","categories-people_and_culture","categories-press-releases","adsk_tags-industrialized-construction","adsk_tags-research","adsk_tags-robotics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew industrialized construction lab opens at UF<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Autodesk is donating $1 million to a new UF industrialized construction lab focused on construction robotics research and workforce training.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/en\/news\/uf-lab-opening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Autodesk and the University of Florida open the most advanced robotics industrialized construction lab in the US to tackle housing and labor shortages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Autodesk is donating $1 million to a new UF industrialized construction lab focused on construction robotics research and workforce training.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/en\/news\/uf-lab-opening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Autodesk News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/autodesk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-04T16:31:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/UF-X-ADSK-1024x760.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"760\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/\",\"name\":\"New industrialized construction lab opens at UF\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/UF-X-ADSK.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-04T16:30:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-04T16:31:34+00:00\",\"description\":\"Autodesk is donating $1 million to a new UF industrialized construction lab focused on construction robotics research and workforce training.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/en\\\/news\\\/uf-lab-opening\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/UF-X-ADSK.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/adsknews.autodesk.com\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/UF-X-ADSK.png\",\"width\":1950,\"height\":1448,\"caption\":\"The Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory will be housed within the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning's Bruno E. and Maritza F. 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