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Shanghai Company 3D Prints 6-Story Apartment Building and Villa
ErnieKey writes Last year, a Shanghai based company made news by 3d printing a bunch of houses. Now that same company, WinSun has accomplished something never seen before. They have successfully 3d printed a 6-story apartment building as well as an incredibly detailed home. The structures were unveiled at the Suzhou Industrial Park. "These two houses are in full compliance with the relevant national standards," Ma Rongquan, the Chief engineer of China Construction No.8 Engineering Bureau, explained. "It is safe, reliable, and features a good integration of architecture and decoration. But as there is no specific national standard for 3D printing architecture, we need to revise and improve such a standard for the future."
This is simply a way to cast concrete in a factory and then wheel the parts to the construction site.
You still need to add all the plumbing, wiring, windows, doors, flooring, etc...
Settle down with the hyperbole already.
It's not any different from using factory-trimmed wood or pre-cast concrete steps.
But just say "3D printing" and the mindless hype starts and brains turn off everywhere.
3D printing might receive my award for the most disruptive modern technology. It is obvious that there is a potential to replace almost 100% of the construction trades. And furniture makers might need to pray a bit as well. I am all for 3D printing but just like cell phones and personal computers 3D printing will have numerous ways of displacing human workers. There have already been boats built with 3D printing and I'll bet someone 3D prints an airplane in the near future. Automobiles with frames and bodies built by 3D printing are a distinct possibility. The displacement of human labor is accelerating rapidly. Yet US society has done nothing in preparation of the negative effects on the population. It makes no sense at all to wait until chaos is at hand to start reforming social practices to accomodate permanently displaced workers.
they are very, very far from truly 3D-printing an entire building
has anyone actually stated that as a goal, or are you getting hung up on semantics?
They did all the right moves without understanding what it really takes to do it.
I think you misunderstand more things than they do. Beside missing the intentions and goals, like above, you don't seem to understand that no matter how clean you can the printed structural wall, nobody will be satisfied with it and throw up sheetrock or paneling. The difference between doing that on a perfectly smooth wall and one with a finish like this is trivial if you have a package of shims. This tech enables a smaller factory to create a greater variety of precast structures and brings the setup cost to custom or low volume structural pieces down to the cost of design and eliminate much of the cost of equipment and setup of manufacturing such pieces.
It also lowers the entry level to producing premaufactured modular structures. Give me the print head and printing material and I, as well a quite a large number of hobbyists, can build the 3-axis CNC and get Open Source software to run it. Give me an architectural engineer, some laborers and a forklift or two and the plant is ready to roll with production.
3D printing in general has gone down a lot of wrong paths (like one of the main goals being able to print more printers) but when you treat it as part of the manufacturing process (rather than having the fantasy or ordering "Tea Earl Grey Hot") it's a step forward in our ability to produce as a society.
Sure, it need further development, but not only is it a step in the right direction, it is a step with the forethought and understanding of how this technology could effectively be used in the real world in the foreseeable future.