Contour Crafting - Extrude-a-House

lww writes "An article in New Scientist discusses the work of Behrokh Khoshnevis at the University of Southern California to design and build a fully automated robot that performs Contour Crafting, his name for a process to extrude successive layers of semi-fluid building mixtures like concrete to create entire structures. In the article, he says 'The goal is to be able to completely construct a one-story, 2000-square foot home on site, in one day and without using human hands.' by 2005. I'm pretty jazzed at the potential to construct buildings with highly curved/creative contours that would be impossible using current construction techniques."

Comments

One day?

[IamGarageGuy 2]

This may be able to construct a house in one day, but I can't see getting this gadget set up in that time. This thing is huge!

Re:Suburbia

[ackthpt]

Boy, and I thought houses in housing developments were too cookie-cutter now.

What's to say they still will be? I find one of the worst trends in neighborhoods is houses that stand out (either they are ugly or make the rest look so). Can you imagine every house on the block looking like some artwork, worse, of different genres?

"Turn left onto Cherryh Street and keep going until you get to the Picasso-blue-period ..."

What's this do for builders? Go learn CNC so you can take the spec from the architect and put the house together? Hmm. Since distance could be removed from the equation, how about the architect does the programming, and he or she could be anywhere in the world...

Honestly, it's interesting, but the coolest thing I saw was on Nova years ago, where some japanese company built modules which were hauled out on a flatbed truck lifted into place and bolted together. Pick out your house by the pieces and have it assembled in a day. Don't like a part? Have it swapped out for one you do like.

Practical only for smaller structures?

[Lafe]

It looks like this sort of technology is actually targeted at just the "smaller" buildings, like houses.

It would seem that this is because it is essentially a "print-a-house" device, which will be limited by the size of the "printer" as well as the type of materials that can be used for "ink." No steel buildings here, only ceramics, some plastics, or adobe-type products.

One thing that struck me funny is that they cited "construction of structures on Moon and Mars" as a possible application, but I simply can't see how it'd be a better option than, say, inflatables.

Curved contours impossible?

[CanSpice]

Negative! There's an alternative building process called cobbing that allows for free-form walls. A group called Cobworks is currently building a cob house in Mexico that's got a number of curved walls.

Curved walls are nowhere near impossible. And placing windows in them is nowhere near impossible either. Furniture and home decoration obviously also has to be bought to fit or placed properly in rooms (i.e. no six foot long paintings hung on a curved wall).

Strange contours have been tried before...

[ChiralSoftware]

The Octagon houses, domes, all kinds of shapes have been tried, but when it comes down to it, plain old right-angle planes are what really work. You can bolt things to them, modify them, cut passages through them, and make additions to them more easily than any other shape. I agree, cubes and rectangles are boring, but alas, they are what seem to work the best for real living.

If you want to see some beautiful uses of curves and non-right-angles in architecture, check out the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. It is truly beautiful, and the kind of thing which could not possibly have been built even 15 years ago because the computer modeling technology wasn't there. But that is a place you go to spend a few hours once a month, not to live there, and it was built with plenty of open space around it, not packed in like a house.

But I think this house-creating technology is cool and I'm sure it will find uses in more spread-out areas where there is room to be creative.

The logical next step is P2P architecture, right?

----------
Make a WAP site with WAP hosting

Framing is a small part...

[cosmicpossum]

The animation shows the machine making a framed structure on a prepared lot. Stick framing can already be done in a day (albeit with a few sets of human hands involved). The thing that takes time in building a house is the wiring, plumbing, hvac, and finishing.

I don't see much future for this until they can automate some of these functions.

Dubious Value

[Wes Janson]

Whatever format this machine has, it's likely going to have to be mounted on a framework with all construction carried out inside the confines of the frame. Now, were the construction material especially fast-drying, sturdy, and lightweight, it might be economical to produce structures in a factory and haul them to location. But for anything larger than a small home, it seems likely that a portable on-site scaffolding-like frame would be necessary. I wonder what sort of calibration issues might arise from such a necessity: the temperature, stability, angle, and many other factors would all affect the construction. Sounds to me like the best idea would be to lay down a concrete floor first the conventional way, with attachment points for the machine, then bring it in, turn it on, wait, and move it on to the next site. No matter how this is done, houses are not going to be constructed in a single day: you'd still need the foundation, the flooring, the roofing, the electrical and plumbing systems, doors, paint, windows, bathroom fixtures, and a myriad of other things to all be installed. As it is, pouring concrete and constructing the walls of a house is by no means the most time-consuming part of making a new home. IANAE, but I really doubt that implementation of this technology would shorten the construction time of an average structure by more than a day or two.

Great news for undeveloped countries

[cubyrop]

Lug this giant pooper into a destitute region of SA or China, and lay down inexpensive shelter for an entire town. Encourage corporate sponsorship - no joke - I'm sure Pepsi wouldn't mind putting up some cash for this process, if each house built had a big pepsi logo carved into it.
Of course, people destitute enough to live in a soft-serve house probably aren't too embroiled in the cola wars. Ebola wars, maybe.

A real use would be pool walls

[Engineer Andy]

The desire to have curved pool walls, which cost a fortune in concrete formwork would be where this could make in-roads if it were able to work around reinforcing steel(unreinforced concrete isn't that crash hot for any serious structural works, especially in any areas of seismicity).

Curved walls may well look pretty, but are a nuisance to work around if you are trying to fit beds, couches, tables against them. One of the bonuses of straight walls iwth square corners.

hotels are built like this today

[way2trivial]

some chain hotels are built using premodular components today.. entire guestrooms, with plumbing and all. the make'em, put them on a barge, and install them on a foundation(i.e. in NYC it's a godsend)

Re:Suburbia

[lpangelrob2]

Interestingly enough, the designer of this building had that in mind. Didn't seem to affect retail values on Michigan Avenue very much. ;-)

Yes, but

[chadjg]

this could completely change the way things are done. As I see it this machine could build a dog house for (a totally wild guess) $50,000, or a big honking ranch style house for $65,000. The expense is still going to be in site preparation and getting the equipment in place. No surprise, right?

I think that once designers get a handle on what this machine can do that they will come up with ways to build houses that will seriously cut down on finish work and systems installation. What about cast in place air ducting, and cast in place conduits? Finish work would be a snap. Believe me, when you hire an experienced stucco crew you'd better be ready for them because you go to lunch and they'll have the job done before you get back. That stuff can be done a lot faster than the vapor barrier-rigid insulation, siding, paint system.

And as far as insulation goes, what' stopping them from extruding that also? Air entrained concrete with those little expanded poly beads is great insulation! If you want to go farther, it wouldn't be hard to cast in little notches to hang interior sheating and then pump insulation behind that.

I spent a summer with a fist full of rebar ties in one hand and a tool in the other, and it wasn't a lot of fun. If you can trade a lot of little hand labor, for a couple of days of guys with heavy equipment, it might be worth it. Who knows.

One thing's for sure, building houses this way isn't going to be done by ma & pop construction outfits.

My experience with concrete is very small, but this could be big, if it isn't a scam and we can get the building codes people to buy it.

Re:Suburbia

[phurley]

You are missing a rather important point, the cookie cutter developments are generally built by crews that know them - limiting building choices increases quality (hate to see what it would be like otherwise) and decreases cost.

Don't forget the labor involved often does not speak english natively, so that increases the savings involved in training on five plans rather than 30.