Foster + Partners Wins €4 Million Grant to Build Timber Buildings With Robot Swarms Working From the Top Down
Foster + Partners, the London architecture firm, has won a €4 million (US$4.3 million) research grant to develop a fleet of autonomous robots and drones that build timber structures from the top down.
The project is called SWIFT-Build — short for Swarm-based Inverted Fabrication for Timber Buildings. The European Innovation Council's Pathfinder funding programme is backing the three-year effort, according to Dezeen, which reported the news on 28 August 2026. Foster + Partners confirmed the grant in its own announcement three days earlier.
The "inverted" part is what makes the system unusual. Instead of starting at ground level and stacking upward, robots assemble the roof — the uppermost floor — first, on the ground. Lifting units then raise the completed section to create space underneath, where the next level down is assembled. The process repeats until the structure is complete. Drones hover above throughout, monitoring progress and flagging problems as they arise.
Irene Gallou, a senior partner at Foster + Partners, described the approach as combining "state-of-the-art robotics and integrated AI tools" that can adapt to various scales and uses, Dezeen reported.
The consortium behind SWIFT-Build stretches across Europe. Foster + Partners is the industry partner; the academic institutions include the University of Bristol, the University of Southern Denmark, the Technical University of Munich, the University of Pisa, Delft University of Technology, the University of Birmingham and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
By the end of the research period, the team plans a full-scale demonstration: autonomous robots constructing a timber pavilion that is specifically designed for disassembly — meaning it can be taken apart and its components reused rather than demolished.
The choice of timber is not incidental. Building with timber is 2.8 per cent cheaper than building with masonry, according to Reuters, which reported in August 2025 on whether robotics and timber construction could help address Britain's housing shortage. That earlier reporting provides the backdrop against which SWIFT-Build's automated approach is being developed, though the project itself is framed as a research demonstration rather than an immediate commercial solution.
For now, the robotics remain in the research phase. The Pathfinder programme funds early-stage, deep-tech exploration — work that sits between a laboratory concept and a market-ready product. A timber pavilion built by robots working from the top down, watched over by drones, will be the proof of concept.
