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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."
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.
In general, are people making projects like this with 3D printers just to show they can? Is there some other motivation at work here?
You see no use for a portable factory that can erect a completely custom building on demand? That it won't in any way change the way people live and work? That it won't impact the construction industry in the least? That a flock of them might come in and rebuild cities after a devastating disaster? Nothing about that strikes you as even remotely valuable?
John
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.
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'
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.
Actually 3D printed structures are probably a bad idea in general, unless it is meant to be a "national" building that will be maintained and last for ideally hundreds if not thousands of years. A 3D printed building is not likely to be able to use materials from pre-existing structures, and whatever is printed is unlikely to be resuable at the end of the structure's lifespan. There is much more future in the design of Leg-like construction modules that would make it easy to assemble and disassemble structural compnents.
An added disadvanted of the printed building is that I see it being difficult to actually print "reinforced" concrete this way. I'm not sure a two storey building would be safe, let alone a multistorey building. Very short span single storey buildings seems to be as much as you can get out of it. It's good for sheds, but not much else. But really the lack of reusability of components is its greatest Achiles heel going on.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)