While these buildings are not about to challenge the mainstream in western countries, 3-D printer construction could find applications where there is little market for current techniques, owing to cost or other difficulties. That might mean housing the world’s billion poorest people, but it could also mean erecting fantastical, currently impossible-to-build structures in the deserts – or
We have seen other examples of printed housing, but as with anything, there are limitations with any process. In other examples, the walls and other elements are printed indoors and then shipped to the site to be assembled. Or there are limitations on site because of the size and complexity of the printer. This method
This castle was printed in concrete by adding layer after layer through a computer controlled nozzle. The turrets and some other parts were assembled separately then mated with the rest of the structure.
Carbon Upcycling: Turning Carbon Dioxide into CO2NCRETE from UCLA Luskin on Vimeo. Did you know that that the production of cement is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions? Around 5 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from concrete. Even though concrete has been with us for centuries (actually the Roman’s
This may sound unbelievable – almost half of the materials purchased to build a house are thrown into the garbage. It may sound absurd, but conventional construction methods (concrete blocks and mortar) are used to build 100 square metres in the developing world, up to 45 per cent of raw materials are wasted. In most
One of the challenges with building houses is the scale of materials and machines required to assemble components on site. Until now, this has been beyond the range of most 3D printers which have been designed to fit on a desk rather than a dusty construction site. Recently Russian engineer Nikita Chen-yun-ta unveiled a new
Building houses quickly and on a very tight budget through additive manufacturing is a very interesting proposition. It would afford builders huge amounts of design flexibility, giving way to unusual but highly functional structures that simply couldn’t be assembled any other way in challenging locations. 3D-printed houses may be about to become more commonplace as
How would you go about building housing on another planet? As you might guess, every pound you try to fly out of the earth’s atmosphere is a serious penalty to the amount of range or the amount of fuel you’d need to carry. Which is why Foster + Partners proposes that printing buildings with semiautonomous
The revolution in 3D printed housing is well underway. But the challenge continues to be how to 3D print at an architectural scale? Additionally is there a way to print ‘in-situ’ or at the end location of whatever structure is being created? The answers are starting to become clearer now and in this recent project
As builders and architects challenge conventional wisdom in how to build structures, technical challenges are becoming apparent as this promising technology emerges from its infancy. One of the most apparent challenges is printing the scale of objects in conventional building like walls, floors and roofs. At the moment, 3D printers are better at jewelry than
Glass has a long history as a building material and is arguably one of the most important materials that enables our modern way of life. Imagine what your day would be like if we eliminated glass? Beyond being dark, there would be a sense of separation from the outside would that would be quite distressing.
As 3D printing hardware advances in capability, enterprising technologists are reaching farther to demonstrate how 3D printing could change how we think about manufacturing and construction. Even large scale buildings are getting ‘printed’ now and the medium of choice is currently concrete. In this case the builders had to stop to install services like plumbing,
Recently, a UC Berkeley research team demonstrated the potential for 3D Printing in architecture. The team constructed (what was at the time) the largest recorded structure built using 3D Printed cement blocks which were individually printed and then placed together into the structure. The structure contains 840 powder-coated blocks built in a pattern that the