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 3D printer that can craft an entire multi-story home in a single day.

In creating this portable 3D printer, Chen-yun-ta aims to avoid the cumbersome bulk of previous printers designed to construct houses and larger scale structures. He also intends for the machine to be rugged and capable of setting up on almost any surface. His prototype only requires  a truck to move the 3D printer from job site to job site and its ready to go within 30 minutes of arrival.

Over the course of 24 hours, the portable 3D printer is able to craft a multi-story home with up to 630 square feet of living space by printing layer after layer of appropriate material. This innovative method saves resources, limits waste, reduces labor costs, and consumes less energy.  Additional benefits include an efficient use of materials that doesn’t leave any construction waste and consumption of only eight kilowatts of energy–as much as five working teapots.

As more and more designers start to think about new ways of using additive technologies for building, new exciting designs will start to pop up using the advantages of this method of building.