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World's First 3D Printed Estate Coming To New York
New submitter Randy-tanner (3791853) writes A well known New York architect & contractor has begun construction on what is possibly the largest 3D printing related project ever undertaken. He is 3D printing an entire estate, which includes an in-ground swimming pool, a pool house, and a huge 2400 square foot home. The project is expected to take two years to complete, and if all goes as planned the printer will automatically insert rebar into the concrete.
Just because you can do a thing, it does not necessarily follow that you should do that thing.
for many people a 2400 sq ft house is still a large house. especially if it is a one floor ranch.
I would be willing to wager it is larger than the average home.
which a quick google search shows the average home size in the US in 2010 is at 2392 sq ft, with a median at 2169 sq ft.
source - http://www.census.gov/const/C2...
This guy may be taking things a bit too far but there is certainly a lot of room for potential use of 3D printers in construction. The two things I really wish already existed are a 3D room painter and a 3D Drywall Joint Compound Printer. Having a machine that can make your walls perfectly smooth (with no sanding). Then have another machine to paint it with no brush strokes and perfectly straight lines. It would be amazing for both home builders and home owners. When compared to paying someone there would be significant savings with a very quick payback if you used it often (home builder). Although a lot of people would be out of a job because of it.
Famous last words.
The rebar thing is important because the material being printed is great in compression but not so great in tension.
Funny, too, because it looks like it's a major pre-fab job building the printer on-site.
In pre-fab construction, housing modules (rooms, etc.) are built off-site, brought in, and assembled. This can range from full room- or floor-sized housing modules down to prefabricated walls and framing assembled into rooms. The most recent prefabricated construction element is the Insulated Concrete Form, a rigid foam form assembled as a concrete pour channel for a basement, producing an insulated foundation.
These 3D printing projects look to assemble prefabricated industrial machinery--the 3D printing platform itself--and then deliver materials to crudely construct a cementious form. It looks like they're using magnesium-based cements instead of Portland lime cement.
Given existing prefabricated concrete forms, I don't see the advantage. Using an ICF, you bring light-weight prefabricated concrete forms rather than heavy-weight prefabricated machinery. Using an ICF, you build up a permanent structural form rather than a temporary industrial complex that must be deconstructed and shipped post-job. Using an ICF, you pour the material directly into the form in one go, rather than layering it in a slow process. Using an ICF, the prefabricated form provides insulation, which a 3D printed form must have applied separately.
This is quite possibly the worst method in history for building simple, small-scale concrete forms. Large-scale forms (high-rises) are currently best built with insulated concrete forms, cranes, steel beams and pylons, and construction methods including driving pylon into the ground.
Looks like a fad to me. 3D printing is not a universal constructor.
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Not sure if it's the first, check the Amsterdam canal house being printed: http://3dprintcanalhouse.com/
trans corpus mortuum
We used to just call it "pouring cement" and "laying bricks" but now that additive manufacturing is such a big hit we have to call it 3D Printing.
Right... this isn't even the first time this has been done either. It's just a machine that mixes cement with filler and pours it into a shape. They then move the shapes into place and kind of prop them up against each other. It's slower, wasteful, not as strong and more expensive than the old fashion way. But he got his name in the paper, and that's all that really matters.
I moved from a very small 1250sqft house to a very large (at least by the standards of this discussion) 4400sqft house (at about 1/7 the cost per sqft). I got more than three times the house (in purely sqft terms) at less than half the cost, so I tend to think of a 2400sqft house as not particularly big, but it depends very much on where you are. I paid in other ways, though, since I had to move from the CA coast to TX to do accomplish this.
In any case, I think the reaction comes from the description of a 2400sqft house as "huge" and part of an "estate". A slightly larger than median-sized home doesn't qualify as huge in that context, although it likely qualifies in the context of 3D-printed homes.
Tilt up wall construction is one of the most common construction methods in the US. The concrete walls are poured on the ground in forms adjacent to their final location, once cured they are tilted up and connected, once the walls are in place the roof is added. Almost every warehouse or industrial building built these days is built with tilt up wall construction.
It's fast, it's cheap and its low labor. Don't speak of what you dont' know.
When did having a pool turn a mid-size home into an "estate?"
... 2400 square feet is "huge?" I'm sure millions and millions of people will be delighted to discover that, all the sudden, they are living on huge estates.
And
Somebody's been watching too many "tiny home" hipster cult reality cable shows.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
There was no advantage of a horse over a car. None what so ever.
Horses can go places cars cannot. Horses are cheaper than most cars, especially if they have access to pasture. Horses last longer than most cars since a horse typically lives for 20-25 years. Horses make less noise and pollute less (even considering the fecal matter). A well trained horse can get you home in some cases with little input from the rider - no car can do that. You can eat a horse should the need arise - no so much with a car. I don't have to insure a horse. I can herd livestock much easier with a horse than with a car. Horses do not require specially built roads to be useful whereas most cars are fairly useless without roads unless they are specially designed. I can jump a fence with a horse.
Not to say cars don't have huge advantages but there are actually quite a few very real advantages to horses.