We’ve all heard of “Bob the Builder,” but one California company has come up with a real-life spinoff: robot the builder – tasked with rebuilding homes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Sasha Jokic founded Cosmic with the goal of creating a better, more efficient way to design and construct homes – informed by his own experience losing his home in what is now Croatia during the Yugoslav Wars in 1995.

“That experience gave me the perspective of what it means to lose a home – and working with the families here in this community, it is something that definitely resonates with my personal journey,” Jokic said.

Working at “the intersection between AI and robotics design and homebuilding,” Jokic and the Cosmic team developed technology to automate and digitize both building and designing a home.

After observing the January wildfires in Los Angeles, Jokic sought to bring the San Francisco-based firm’s services to the forefront of rebuilding. 

Earlier this month, Cosmic unveiled its first-ever mobile robotic microfactory in the Palisades where a robot is able to frame homes on site. This results in structural paneling being completed 80% cheaper and 10 times faster than the traditional process.

“That reflects on the final product as a 30% lower cost for the move-in ready home and three times faster,” Jokic said, who identified Cosmic as “a “one-stop shop… (with) an end-to-end construction process leveraging AI driven software design.”

‘Game changer’ 

As of now, the robot’s sole role is building the framing of homes, while humans still do the assembling.

What really sets Cosmic’s model apart from other attempts at modular building is having its microfactory on site within the neighborhood of the homes it’s building, said Alan Baron, an enterprise management consultant at RealFoundations, who called the business “innovative” and “a game changer.”

“The challenge of off-site building in the past has been that the factories have been far away from where the building is actually occurring,” Baron said, noting a complicated and expensive shipping ordeal.

“The fact that (Cosmic) is setting up microfactories that are local is a key element that I think they’re going to have success with,” Baron, who specializes in streamlining operations for real estate firms, added.

With its first microfactory now operating, Cosmic intends to open three to four additional factories in other parts of Pacific Palisades and in Altadena to complete its goal of delivering 1,000 homes to wildfire victims in the next three years.

Each microfactory has the capacity to frame 100 homes at 2,000 square feet per year, Jokic said, though Cosmic is not limited to that size. The robot can build structures with up to six stories in its current condition. Depending on the size, homes can range from $550 to $700 per square foot.

As of last week, Cosmic had been working on designs for 48 families, with 12 having signed contracts. The largest home in the firm’s pipeline spans 6,000 square feet across three stories in Pacific Palisades. For this particular home, once the foundation is complete, Jokic said it will be finished in six to 10 months.

Speed and precision

The fast home delivery stems from the speed at which the robot can construct the paneling, as well as its precision.

“AI has been incredible for us in really giving
the robot eyes and a brain, meaning the robot becomes a really intelligent machine that understands its surroundings and based on the certain circumstances, can reprogram its set of actions,” Jokic said, adding that the technology has “zero tolerance” for mistakes.

For example, if a stud is damaged or if a panel lands in the wrong place, the robot can recognize that, remove the damaged or incorrectly placed piece, put it aside and continue the work.

Additionally, because of the way the robot is programmed in terms of precision, the Cosmic team can construct cabinets and other interior parts of the home off site at the same time the robot is making the paneling. This further creates a speedier process than traditional building where builders wait for the paneling to be done before getting to work on those other aspects, Jokic said.

With such accuracy, Cosmic doesn’t need highly trained workers because everything fits as expected, Jokic said. Overall, projects need about half the workers typically involved in a home build. Cosmic is also in the process of developing technology for a robot to construct cabinets and finishings, in addition to the paneling, he said.

At a time when Los Angeles is seeing a construction workforce shortage, Baron said a model like Cosmic’s can help mitigate issues of supply.

“Labor is constrained right now, and the trade bases are struggling to keep up with the demand for new home development,” Baron said. “… (Reducing labor needs) certainly helps with those constraints.”

Design and permitting 

The use of AI technology and automation is incorporated at the preconstruction and design phases of Cosmic’s homebuilding as well.

Cosmic clients can sit down with the team to design and customize their homes, a process the firm is waiving the cost of for wildfire victims. Households can also browse templates and other clients’ designs and alter them according to their preferences.

“For all those design changes, we immediately generate a whole 3D model of the home down to each screw,” Jokic said. “We know the cost, we know the time and we know that it’s buildable with our machine. The information goes directly from the design to the robot.”

Once a plan is made, Cosmic can run the design through its system which evaluates the zoning and building codes for the particular site to ensure code compliance and help guarantee plan approvals. This includes implementing fire codes in addition to Cosmic’s already fire-resistant model of building with non-combustible materials and using solar and battery systems.

The number and variants of codes locally and nationally “has been a really big blocker for scaling the industrialized construction processes, but with AI you can really make all the code compliance in a matter of minutes,” Jokic said.

Cosmic has already received approval from the county for a home in Altadena.

“They’re making strides by using AI and getting the permit-ready plans quicker,” Baron said. “And being able to process changes quicker equates to improved cycle times and time is money.”

That said, the more Cosmic can stick to standard plans – with straightforward customization requests – that have already been approved, the faster the process will be in Baron’s eyes.

“The further you get away from standardization into customization, the complexity and timelines extend,” Baron said.

‘Envision a future’

For every 10 contracts that Cosmic receives, it will donate one home to a wildfire victim through a need-based application process. The donated homes will be 900 square feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

“We will be working with our (public, private and nonprofit) partners to really make sure that selections are fair and go to the families that need the help most,” Jokic said.

As a public benefit corporation, Jokic said Cosmic’s mission is to widen the access to high-quality homes.

While rebuilding in Los Angeles is Cosmic’s short-term goal, Jokic sees the work the team is doing here as a “platform to showcase the scalability of this technology” and its ability to meet housing demand efficiently.

“Everything that we earn, we will be investing into technology to solve the housing crisis throughout the nation, and we’ll be also (using) a portion of our revenue to donate homes. All the donations are revenue driven (without) external donations,” Jokic said.

Baron too sees the potential for Cosmic to scale both with its own building footprint
but also to potentially sell its technology to other builders. 

“We envision a future where we have 2,000 factories, each building 100 homes per year, effectively ending the housing crisis in the U.S.,” Jokic said.