3D-Printed Public Housing Unveiled in France (reuters.com)

Researchers have unveiled what they billed as the world's first 3D-printed house to serve as a home in the French city of Nantes, with the first tenants due to move in by June. From a report: Academics at the University of Nantes who led the project said it was the first house built in situ for human habitation using a robot 3D-printer. The robot, known as BatiPrint3D, uses a special polymer material that should keep the building insulated effectively for a century. It took BatiPrint3D around 18 days to complete its part of the work on the house - creating hollow walls that were subsequently filled with concrete for insulation. The 95 square meter (1000 square feet), five-room house will be allocated to a local family which qualifies for social housing, authorities said.

Comments

Disruptive

[PopeRatzo]

If they can figure out a way to work "machine learning" and "blockchain" into this story, I could win jargon bingo and it's barely noon.

I'm an American

[rsilvergun]

and when I tell people I'd want to give free housing to the homeless they look at me like I've got lobsters crawling out of my ears. Thing is, unless you're gonna let the poor die in the streets (and do terrible things when they show up at your neighborhood to loot because they're dying) or you're gonna ship them off to gulags then giving the homeless housing is cheaper than the current patchwork nightmare of social services and short term prison.

So slower than traditional building methods?

[ravenscar]

It took the machine 18 days to complete its work. The article was pretty low on information, but it sounds like its work consisted of something roughly equivalent to framing (no electrical, plumbing, insulation, finish work, etc.). A regular crew could frame a 1000 square foot home much faster. I'm seeing things like this on other sites: "On average, crew of three experienced carpenters and two helpers able to complete framing of a new 1,900 ft2 – 2,100 ft2 two story simple house in 7 – 8 days." (rempros.com).

This is cool and all and I'm always glad to see investment in promising new tech, but it doesn't sound like it's any sort of end-all solution to housing problems.