More than 220,000 new homes need to be built in Massachusetts over the next decade to address the growing housing affordability crisis, according to a recent assessment by the commonwealth. To help tackle the shortage, Gov. Maura Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act into law in August, authorizing $5.1 billion in funding.
Against this backdrop, UMass Lowell’s recent James B. Francis Lecture on the Built Environment asked a timely question: Can artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics meaningfully improve how we design and deliver attainable, sustainable housing?
“Current housing costs affect a wide array of people, including many of our own students who hope to buy homes after they graduate,” said Art and Design Associate Professor Marie Frank, director of the architectural studies program and the lecture’s host. “There are many ways to address the situation — political, sociological, economic, legislative, financial — but one way is definitely through design and construction.”
The lecture featured two separate talks: one from civil and environmental engineering alum Steven Fallon ’20, an MBTA project manager and architectural designer with D21 Architects, and another from Jessica Boatright, a longtime leader in Boston’s affordable housing programs who now works at Reframe Systems, an Andover-based company that builds prefabricated, net-zero homes using robots and automated “microfactories” to speed up the construction process and lower costs.
Fallon, who earned his master’s degree in architecture from Boston Architectural College in 2024, said AI should support, not replace, human judgment in design.
“I don’t want to use AI just because it’s new and cool,” he said. “But when it helps solve real constraints, that’s exciting.”
He pointed to his college team’s first-place design in an affordable housing competition in Revere, where a basic program helped test options, but the final plan came from hands-on design and collaboration. The result, which he called “hidden density,” fit a larger apartment building behind a row of smaller homes around a courtyard — an example of using technology intentionally to create more housing while keeping community character.
Boatright, meanwhile, explained how Reframe combines vision-guided robotics with skilled apprentices to assemble wall panels and multifamily housing in controlled factory environments. She emphasized that robotics is not meant to displace workers, but rather to address a looming labor shortage.
“There’s an opportunity to use technology to create pathways into construction at a time when many of our most experienced workers are nearing retirement,” she said.
The event drew nearly 60 students at the Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center.
Alexavier Pilacik, a first-year environmental science major from Hopkinton, said he appreciated the emphasis on sustainability.
“Sustainable housing is really interesting to me, so it was interesting to hear how they’re improving on architecture by building in a small space and using more sustainable materials,” he said. “It’s good that they’re using AI for development, because there is a housing crisis. But we should make it more sustainable because those data centers are using a lot of water and creating pollution.”
Beatrice Brasil, a first-year civil and environmental engineering major from Lowell, said the lecture gave her hope for the future of her field.
“It was thought-provoking to see how AI can be used as a helpful tool for the craft instead of to our detriment,” she said. “And as someone who hopes to have a house in a few years, making progress on affordability is very important.”
The annual lecture honors James B. Francis, the 19th-century Lowell engineer whose innovations in hydraulics and flood control shaped the city’s mills and canals — and the person for whom UMass Lowell’s engineering college is named.