Not sure why this is currently front page. They could have built even better houses had they used what is referred to around here as 'tilt-up' construction. You pour a concrete foundation, You stake out four wall forms around that foundation and pour in the walls, when they cure you tilt them up and tie the tops together with steel. Boom, "instant" building with windows and doors.
The approach is somewhat novel and interesting, and it's the first time I've seen photos of an actual end-to-end implementation of the "3D print a house!!" trope. I do agree that it's probably impractical, but I found the approach fun to think about.
I also think this has a few advantages over tilt-up:
1) The resulting product is lighter, since the walls are mostly air rather than concrete. I suspect they could manufacture small houses at a factory and transport them by truck, without the construction overhead of other prefabricated home systems.
2) The end product probably insulates better. With the right internal design to try to limit air movement (and thus natural convective losses), these walls look like they could have a decent R-value.
3) Less space is required to print in-place or construct a manufacturing facility. Tilt-up requires enough space to pour the wall forms around the building in addition to room to utilize cranes and cherry pickers - an in-place gantry system for printing a house should only take (house+gantry) footprint rather than (house + height of house).
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Not sure why this is currently front page. They could have built even better houses had they used what is referred to around here as 'tilt-up' construction. You pour a concrete foundation, You stake out four wall forms around that foundation and pour in the walls, when they cure you tilt them up and tie the tops together with steel. Boom, "instant" building with windows and doors.
The approach is somewhat novel and interesting, and it's the first time I've seen photos of an actual end-to-end implementation of the "3D print a house!!" trope. I do agree that it's probably impractical, but I found the approach fun to think about.
I also think this has a few advantages over tilt-up:
1) The resulting product is lighter, since the walls are mostly air rather than concrete. I suspect they could manufacture small houses at a factory and transport them by truck, without the construction overhead of other prefabricated home systems.
2) The end product probably insulates better. With the right internal design to try to limit air movement (and thus natural convective losses), these walls look like they could have a decent R-value.
3) Less space is required to print in-place or construct a manufacturing facility. Tilt-up requires enough space to pour the wall forms around the building in addition to room to utilize cranes and cherry pickers - an in-place gantry system for printing a house should only take (house+gantry) footprint rather than (house + height of house).
Uh, because it's a new / interesting / powerful way of creating buildings that enables a vast degree of complexity and customization?
The previous discussion from Oct '13 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628137) on these guys : http://www.industrytap.com/the-printer-that-can-print-a-hous... suggested an interesting powerful way of creating buildings. Looking at the article it appears this guy prints a concrete tube and then tilts it over on its side and puts windows/doors on either end. That seems to me to greatly restrict his complexity choices.