Posted on 04/14/2014 9:05:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
From Oreos to body parts, 3D printers have been cranking out some pretty unbelievable stuff lately.
But in Shanghai, WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co. has been using a monstrous printing device to build homes at a breakneck pace — 10 homes in 24 hours.
Measuring out at roughly 105 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 21 feet tall, this clearly isn’t your average retail printer.
Unlike most 3D printers, this printing giant is fed with cement rather than plastic, making it especially well-suited for home construction.
The best part is the houses are super cheap to make and they’re made almost entirely of construction and other industrial waste.
When it’s all said and done, the houses are roughly 650 square feet and cost only $4,800 to make, which is why they’re being considered as a housing solution for China’s poor.
It’s not the first crack at 3D home building, but it is definitely the fastest, most economical, and environmentally friendly way we’ve seen to date.
Check out the finished product below:
(PHOTOS-AT-LINK)
My wife spent 5 weeks in the Philippines after that huge typhoon last winter. Most every building was destroyed or damaged. I said I think a concrete igloo would have held up, nowhere for the wind to get a grip. I read that the suction of the air on the backside of a vertical wall can help pull it down as much as the positive wind pressure on the front, and a dome might let the wind slide over smoother.
We were looking at pictures she took from a van window as they drove past a big resort hotel that was wiped out. The concrete wall around the place was laying in chunks. In one picture, between the road and the ocean I spied a little cinder block igloo standing proud and undamaged. I imagine it might have been a dressing room for the beach or something. The beach was eroded right behind it, everything flattened around it, and there it stood only missing a little paint.
Don’t worry. The process will become much more sophisticated in a pretty short period of time. Just remember the first cars, airplanes, and computers, and compare those to what is available now. And with the design power we have it suspect it won’t take fifty years or so to get there.
We won’t recognize many things 50 years hence. I’ll be 104. LOL
Good grief, I’ll be older than that! Sigh...it seems like yesterday...
BwanaNdege, is there a video of your “3D Printing Domes Homes” TEDx talk? I googled, but this page was the only hit.
I have been interested in monolithic.com for years, since back before 3d printers were popular, and when I saw the construction pictures of a guy waving a shotcrete hose around by hand I thought, “there *has* to be a way to remote-control that!”
I’d be very interested in hearing more about your “polar scaffold” idea. Obviously it would work equally well for both the insulation and the shotcrete, but would there be a way to also automate placing the rebar-hangers (probably easy, via some nailgun-like appendage) and cutting/bending/hanging the rebar itself? (probably very hard)
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