In the October 2018 issue of Architectural Digest - Discoveries Architecture: "Welcome to the Robot Age" article, by Stephen Wallis, the promise of 3-D printing habitable housing, on demand, in virtually any location is becoming a reality.
"For the past several years, talk of 3-D printing revolutionizing the way we build has been mostly just that - talk. But the promise of printing a habitable house, on demand, in virtually any location, is becoming a reality."
“Cutting costs, saving time, and eliminating waste, the 3-D printed house has officially arrived".
Welcome to the 3-D Print Race
"Around the globe, teams of architects, engineers and entrepreneurs have developed robotic arms capable of producing walls for a small home in as little as 24 hours, with essentially zero waste and for a fraction of traditional construction costs. Competing to develop the top technology, industry players are now engaged in a space race of sorts - literally so, in some cases, with NASA funding research for printing habitats beyond our planet."
"At Austin's South by Southwest festival this past March, the San Francisco based non profit New Story presented a 350 square foot prototype of the low cost homes it proposes to build across the developing world. During Milan's Design Week, architect Massimiliano Locatelli debuted a 1,100 square foot residence of a decidedly more luxurious sort, with elegantly plastered interior walls, brass details, and stylish furnishings. Both of these projects utilized similar technology in which robotic arms extruded a layer of a concrete mixture that hardened into solid walls."
With the unveiling of the first two 3-D printed homes, this new form of construction could not only lead to a cost effective means to provide those without adequate shelter a place to call home but also provide architects, engineers and designers the potential to create new forms outside of the realm of traditional building materials.
Works Cited
Wallis, Stephen. “Discoveries Architecture - Welcome the Robot Age.” Architectural Digest , 1 Oct. 2018, pp. 66–68.