3D Printers To Build Houses

gbjbaanb writes to point out an article in the Sunday Times describing two separate programs where robots are being developed to build houses. The Los Angeles project is farther along than the one in the UK, but the article provides more details on the techniques employed in the latter. Liquid concrete and gypsum will be sprayed from nozzles in a manner analogous to an inkjet printer. From the article: "The first prototype — a watertight shell of a two-story house built in 24 hours without a single builder on site — will be erected in California before April. The robots are rigged to a metal frame, enabling them to shuttle in three dimensions and assemble the structure of the house layer by layer. The sole foreman on site operates a computer programmed with the designer's plans... Inspired by the inkjet printer, the technology goes far beyond the techniques already used for prefabricated homes. 'This will remove all the limitations of traditional building,' said [an architect involved with the UK project]. 'Anything you can dream you can build.'"

Comments

Need to start somewhere

[mccalli]

It's true that these won't produce fully fledged ready to move into homes, but it's still a start isn't it? Providing the quality is good then I'm all in favour of moves like this.

I have a couple of domestic robots, the Roomba and Scooba. I still need a vacuum cleaner and a mop, but only to handle the fiddly bits (stairs, furniture, round the back of the fridge etc.). The vast bulk of the work is handled by the two robots. I view these projects in the same way - they're a good starting point and will do a large amount of the work, but you'll still need some skill and manual work at the end to finish things off.

I used to live in the Barbican in London...
I'm working there and posting from there now. You have my deepest sympathies, horrible place. I'm from Sheffield - up there we dynamite places like the Barbican, not slap preservation orders on them.

Cheers,
Ian

Brilliant news for the 3rd World

[eugene_roux]

The biggest problem we have here in the third world, other than education, is housing.

Currently what happens is that -- in the urbunising of people -- most people tend to build with whatever materials they have available leading to shanty-towns all over Africa with people living in shack-like hovels.

If this technology is able to deliver, and deliver cheaply, we might just have one of the technologies needed to bootstrap Africa out of abject poverty.

The other major problem, education, might just be in the hands of the OLPC guys...

Re:A truly horrible idea

[Ihlosi]

Concrete is good for tropical and warm climates where rainfall is not too high, but in the UK where humidity is high most of the year it is a recipe for damp and mould.

Actually, the recipe for mold is insufficient insulation and improper heating/ventilation habits.

None of these have particularly much to do with concrete, other than concrete requiring a few more cm of insulation on the outside than bricks.

What will this do to housing prices?

[mrjb]

The machine builds houses in 1/200 of the time at 1/5 of the cost. Who wants to bet the price of houses will stay around the same level? Almost any random 2-bedroom house in the Netherlands costs a quarter of a million euros nowadays. The same size house sells around a hundred thousand in Portugal. In Canada, this price range can get you a 5-bedroom house. Based on these numbers, it would seem to me that the cost of building the house itself is just a minor factor in the price of a house.

Re:Too good to be true?

[vhogemann]

I think its quite the opposite,

Intricate details, decorations, and such will be much easier, and cheaper, to do using these robotic constructors.

It would be easy to get the finished plans, and add every bit of baroque extravagance to your house using a CAD program, and being able to preview it real-time. Everybody will have a chance to be a Gaudí.