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Dutch Architect Plans 3D Printed Building
ExRex writes "Dutch architecture studio Universe Architecture is planning to construct a house with a 3D printer for the first time. The Landscape House will be printed in sections using the giant D-Shape printer, which can produce sections of up to 6 x 9 meters using a mixture of sand and a binding agent. Architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars of Universe Architecture will collaborate with Italian inventor Enrico Dini, who developed the D-Shape printer, to build the house, which has a looping form based on a Möbius strip. 3D printing website as saying: 'It will be the first 3D printed building in the world. I hope it can be opened to the public when it's finished.' The team are working with mathematician and artist Rinus Roelofs to develop the house, which they estimate will take around 18 months to complete. The D-Shape printer will create hollow volumes that will be filled with fiber-reinforced concrete to give it strength. The volumes will then be joined together to create the house."
In general, are people making projects like this with 3D printers just to show they can? Is there some other motivation at work here?
Then we can finally build a house out of Gingerbread.
Not the first printed house.
Perhaps the first house built with printed concrete forms.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The architect doesn't build the building - he designs it. This architect has worked out the engineering and structural complications of making a usable modern building from what are effectively giant jigsaw puzzle pieces. Now someone else would have to acquire the materials, buy the land, and actually assemble the thing. Whoever's actually going to own the building will decide what to do with it. It might be an office, or maybe an art museum, or perhaps just "a garage or something", but it's not the architect's choice.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
We can now make a completely artificial home look just like not just any cave, but your cave, you'll feel right at home!
3D printing buildings is a cool idea. It can be done in masonry, that is to say fiber reinforced concrete, which would produce low cost, high mass, highly energy efficient buildings. I just did one like this but poured it rather than 3D printing it. Sort of the same thing. 1.6 million pounds of concrete later we have a super insulated building that is built as bottles within bottles for extreme energy efficiency. In our case it is an on-farm USDA inspected slaughterhouse and butcher shop for our family farm.
See: http://sugarmtnfarm.com/butchershop
I developed many of the techniques when we built our house in a similar manner. Prior to that we did even smaller models as animal shelters and desktop models. All along I fancied that much of this could be done just like 3D printing. The pumper we use is not all that different.
The team are working with mathematician and artist Rinus Roelofs to develop the house, which they estimate will take around 18 months to complete.
How long does it take a conventional architect and builder to complete a house? I figure an architect can design a conventional house in 4 months. But most conventional builds start with an existing design and customize it a little bit based on the lot and customer preferences. I know you can build one in about 3 weeks with conventional methods presuming you can schedule all the work crews to be on site on the soonest day the house is ready for them. That's bare lot to ready-to-move-in. It normally takes much longer to get a home built but that's because most of the time it sits idle waiting for the next work crew to show up.
No, the architect drew a pretty picture of an impossible to build structure that would fall down if it somehow was constructed.
He handed that to the Engineers who made it into a workable project.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not that most construction is not already made by adding layers of materials on top of layer placed before it.
conversely, the structural engineer simplified the design to the most efficient shape possible - for structure. the client got a box with no windows. The MEP took that design and filled it with the necessary requirements. The client got a mechanical room in the middle of the space that took up 40% of the total volume. The landscape architect took one look at the building, and had it leveled to create a park. The civil engineer took the park and created a drainage pond and a highway overpass.
The architect then sat down with the client and said, "would you like someone to make these guys actually work well?" And then to the consultants, he said "would you like to make some money?"
Architecture has changed from it's original stature as "The Master Builder." There's simply too much complexity in most buildings for any single trade to do everything on your own. Architects act similarly to movie directors these days. They may not write the script, they may not build the sets, they may not be the one behind each camera, but their ability to bring together all these elements is what makes the work sing as a whole.
Full disclosure, I am a CS major turned architect. An architect is, admittedly, a jack of all trades, ace of none. But it's that diversity that helps us traverse so many fields.
They seem to be doing a lot planning for the final design, with either planning for or having done the basics first. (Prototype testing etc...) For that matter, the printer's website is long on hype, short on real information or accomplishments.
Saying and doing are two different things. I'll wait and see. BTW: where's the toilet in that thing?
Wright's version of modernism was very much rooted in 19th century America. In the land, in the American culture, in the idea of home and domesticity, in warm materials that came out of the earth, wood and stone and so forth. The Europeans had a whole different set of priorities.
They were really Utopian socialists. They wanted to remake the traditional family. They envisioned a whole modern culture in which society itself would change. Wright was trying to create a different kind of architectural expression for a traditional culture which he very much believed in. ---- Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic
Fallingwater Interior
This Mobius strip looks more like a pavilion design for a World's Fair.
If I am reading the renderings correctly, it does not have an unbroken interior. Navigating from one "room" to the next looks to be quite a hike.
I don't see how you organize the interior space that is any way livable.
USC has been working on 3D printing of buildings for a while now. Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has developed a process he calls contour crafting that builds up a wall by adding concrete to it one contour at a time. You can find a TEDx video here. They're currently working with NASA to see if this technique can be used on the moon. But it doesn't seem like they've moved beyond the prototype stage.
So eventually we won't need construction workers at all? As much as I hate to say it, with all of this technology we will have to merge into a communist-like country (like communist mixed with democracy). How else can people live if there are no actual jobs? And for technology maintenance, you really don't need that many people or requires too much schooling (even if it's not difficult).
The G
Playing minecraft!
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
I have seen many building that were architect fads, but that one tops anything I can recall.
Well, perhaps not quite the next step, but I can already imagine sending one of those to Mars in pieces to build a physical base for manned missions. It would have to be self-assembling and able to produce its own building materials on site, but it seems feasible to me. Not easy, but possible.
There was an episode of Grand Designs here in the UK where two guys built a house predominantly out of machine cut plywood that they formed into boxes. They stuck the the boxes together and pretty soon had a house. Whilst not 3d printed per-se, it's the first machine-made house I've ever seen.
I do wonder if it would be possible to make a wall building bot. You put bricks in a hopper, cement powder in another hopper and connect it all to the water supply. Out comes your new garden wall. It's not too much of a stretch to have it skip out sections to put windows in, and then you're 80% towards the main structure of your house.
An architect is, admittedly, a jack of all trades, ace of none.
only because mad bong hits arent a trade.
I love the idea of a 3D printer house. The original concept from Contour Crafting using quick dry concrete and plaster of Paris is better than the man made sand stone used by D Shape in both construction time and durability. The problem is how to add rebar to either design to make them earthquake resistant. Using Giant Compressed Earth Blocks (GCEB) are more environmentally friendly idea since no concrete is used. A machine can extrude giant earthen Legos that can then be assembled. Rebar can then be pounded or drilled in before the blocks cure in place.
How do they intend to put the rebar in the D Shape blocks?