Company 3D-Prints House in 24 Hours

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Here is a look at the world’s first 3D-printed house, which cost a grand total of $10,134. While it looks like a giant food container from the outside, the inside looks pretty comfy and makes a good case for the viability of constructing a practical living space using modern printing technologies.

A 3D-printing company managed to build a star-shaped house on-site in just one day. The cheery yellow dwelling is tiny — just 400 square feet — and circular in layout. The company — San Francisco-based Apis Cor — built the house from a concrete mixture which it says lasts around 175 years. Apis Cor built the house at its test facility in Moscow, where the temperature proved to be the biggest roadblock. Concrete won’t set below a certain temperature, so the team erected a tent around the printer to keep out some of the freezing air. Shaped like a crane, the printer is relatively easy to transport. Once on site, it builds from a central point, erecting a house from the ground up. Most 3D printers have to build off-site, and transport the pieces for assembly.
 
Pretty cool video. I'm sure the material is good at insulating (since it's really just concrete). There would have to be human interaction to add stuff like in-wall wiring and plumbing, but it looks likes the initial voids in the walls would be easy to work with.

I like it. It would be cool if they could have multiple nozzles on the machine for using difference materials or textures.

I still think sub-terrain or burmed housing is the best answer to most of the problems we face with housing (protection, energy usage, loss of plant life).
 
Ughmmm, they say apis core cost $275/m^2 and then a square house using avg cost materials would cost $235/m^2 and then they claim 70% economy, how does that make sense? Apis core is more expensive, no, or did they just suck at explaining what $235 was for?
 
How does the structure handle earthquakes, floods and other natural events? Let's see the company pit their printed building against the aforementioned circumstances. If the building survives, I will be impressed.
 
Megalith Awesome find!

I could imagine this technology for military use. Place numerous blast shields in front of a few of these 3D printers so that the enemy can't see what's going on. 3D print pillboxes, forward operating bases, security checkpoints, battalion aid stations, etc.

wwii_pillbox.jpg
 
This is the future of building, cost will come down with time as will build time.

Only problem I see is the impact on the economy, house building is something that supports a lot of people. However that's a situation that we will have to deal with as the "robotification" of society is something that will happen/is ongoing.
 
Cinder blocks are cheaper, stronger, faster, more versatile, will pass inspection.
 
kandrey89 said:
Ughmmm, they say apis core cost $275/m^2 and then a square house using avg cost materials would cost $235/m^2 and then they claim 70% economy, how does that make sense? Apis core is more expensive, no, or did they just suck at explaining what $235 was for?
Click to expand...

The $235/m^2 (~$22/ft^2) was the cost to build a more traditional square house using the same 3d printing machine. A traditional wooden frame house, as built in the US and Canada, would cost far more than that. I built a house some 25 years ago, with average materials, that cost me ~$700/m^2 ($65/ft^2) and building materials and labour are quite a bit more now.
 
Why they speak Russian in the background and show some printed materials in Russian? Is it a Russian company?
 
0neTwo said:
Cinder blocks are cheaper, stronger, faster, more versatile, will pass inspection.
Click to expand...

Cinderblocks require a lot of labor, usually union. This machine doesn't require the same amount of labor.

I work with construction companies and they try to find ways around union labor every possible chance they get. For example, a project that requires rebar reinforcement cages would usually have those assembled on site by union laborers. The answer to that was to have them assembled off-site in a warehouse (non union fab) and brought preassembled to the site. That small adjustment saves a ton of union labor hour expenses.

You might be wondering, why not just go non-union on site? A lot of projects (city/etc) require it, some areas have only unionized workforces - you don't want to be building with the guys you find in the home depot lot.
 
Is there really a difference in how a house feels if its made of wood or concrete?
I'm impressed how its portable and can print on site. Just a matter of time before everyone copies that tech though.
 
Where's the 3d printed house? All I see is a 3d printed Ikea show room.

But really, curved walls on such a tiny structure? Horrible decisions all around. Glad they showed some traditional rectangular building in the video though, I was wondering if the machine could only do radii and radial straight lines as it was for the "house" they built.
 
kandrey89 said:
Ughmmm, they say apis core cost $275/m^2 and then a square house using avg cost materials would cost $235/m^2 and then they claim 70% economy, how does that make sense? Apis core is more expensive, no, or did they just suck at explaining what $235 was for?
Click to expand...
I think it's just bad wording. They don't seem to be english speakers judging by the people they shown in the video. What I suspect they mean is that with their technology a regular square house would cost 235/m2. I don't think you can build a 40m2 house made of concrete for 10k using regular technology.

What I'm more interested in is, how do the fiberglass reinforcement gets inserted into the concrete. I hope it's done on the fly by the printer otherwise this is quite pointless.
 
M76 said:
What I'm more interested in is, how do the fiberglass reinforcement gets inserted into the concrete. I hope it's done on the fly by the printer otherwise this is quite pointless.
Click to expand...
Well because I decided to watch this video Youtube now recommends similar videos... like the one below, same system, but the only "3d print" aspect is the concrete pooping it does, all the reinforcing aspects seem to be human made.

 
Sort of interesting but a bit dishonest.

The house wasn't 3D printed in a day, just the walls.

And all it does is replace the cheapest part of building a house, the rough framing, with something else that is more difficult to work with.

It's cool in a "we did it because we can" kind of way.
 
kandrey89 said:
Ughmmm, they say apis core cost $275/m^2 and then a square house using avg cost materials would cost $235/m^2 and then they claim 70% economy, how does that make sense? Apis core is more expensive, no, or did they just suck at explaining what $235 was for?
Click to expand...

I might be wrong, but I think they are only talking about material cost and not labor cost. So the saving is that you aren't paying the people for putting together the $235/m^2 parts

Galvin said:
Is there really a difference in how a house feels if its made of wood or concrete?
I'm impressed how its portable and can print on site. Just a matter of time before everyone copies that tech though.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be any different from having a basement living area for the feel. In the USA we are just use to our stick built houses, other parts of the world use concrete, bricks, rocks... stuff much different than us so to them it might feel normal and just like any other home.
 
Yep it puts the concrete down, but not the fiber reinforced railes, or the wall smoothing.

Cool tech, but needs a few more features to reach their marketing lingo.
 
kandrey89 said:
Ughmmm, they say apis core cost $275/m^2 and then a square house using avg cost materials would cost $235/m^2 and then they claim 70% economy, how does that make sense? Apis core is more expensive, no, or did they just suck at explaining what $235 was for?
Click to expand...
Yeah, It's miss-worded... It looks like it could print a 145 M^2 round concrete structure for about $34.1K. This specific printer could also do about a 910 ft^2 building.
Though this may only be the framing (and some insulation) part of the job, if you think you could get a contractor to come out and build a 92 M^2 structure (out of anything other than sheet steel) for $25K you haven't looked recently.

For modern housing developments I don't think the larger gantry systems would really be out of place. When you line it up and build 20 houses in a row, just lay out the track for 2-3 houses and come back in a week and the structures are ready to be finished.

0neTwo said:
Cinder blocks are cheaper, stronger, faster, more versatile, will pass inspection.
Click to expand...

If you really think cinder blocks are good (for anything at all) you have not looked at buying older houses. When we went looking (just last year), maybe a third of the houses we looked at with cinder block basements didn't need work. The other 2/3ds of them needed $10-20K in foundation work (for houses in the 1200-2000 ft^2 range). Cinder blocks are great for leveling things and above ground work on a concrete foundation, but that's in.
 
AceGoober said:
How does the structure handle earthquakes, floods and other natural events? Let's see the company pit their printed building against the aforementioned circumstances. If the building survives, I will be impressed.
Click to expand...

Well for 80% of the world earthquakes are not really an issue. Plus as its almost a one piece building I would say it would hold up pretty well. As for flood...well no building really handles that well. It it gets flooded its pretty much trashed. However, you could argue this type of building would be easier to make watertight with appropriate doors and windows.
 
a shell is one thing, but plumbing electrical, heating/cooling, septic/sewer drain field is another. I've seen a rough-in of a house larger than that in 24 hours.
 
cptnjarhead said:
a shell is one thing, but plumbing electrical, heating/cooling, septic/sewer drain field is another. I've seen a rough-in of a house larger than that in 24 hours.
Click to expand...

I would imagine that part of the attraction here would be the customization and flexibility of the shell/layout. Most homes under $1 Million are mostly prefab and cookie cutter. This would potentially put some real options and personality at lower price tiers.

It may be more space efficient to transport container trucks of this concrete mixture to site, rather than large frames, drywall, etc. If some one were setting up a new facility in a remote location, this could be an attractive option.
 
kandrey89 said:
Ughmmm, they say apis core cost $275/m^2 and then a square house using avg cost materials would cost $235/m^2 and then they claim 70% economy, how does that make sense? Apis core is more expensive, no, or did they just suck at explaining what $235 was for?
Click to expand...

In sq feet it came out to $25.335/ft and a cheap house is around $100 to $150/ft depending on location and excluding permitting and land costs so 70% does sound correct. So $25/ft is pretty amazing, we'll see if it can print anything bigger than 400sq ft though because that's not even a livable size unless you live in SF or Manhattan in which case it's a mansion =P
 
Some of you guys have high expectations. This is new, it is a start, it is not perfection. You can't expect the space shuttle when people just learned to glide.
I just hope it takes long enough for people to adjust. If they perfect it tomorrow whole lot of jobs gone.
 
Calling shenanigans.. extruding concrete in making a house has been done before.

Example:
2015

2014
 
That's an awfully long and flimsy looking boom crane design, for that machine. One would think an overhead setup, with two linear motion rails, typical of current CnC machines, may be more sturdy and work better. It would also eliminate the circular shape of the structure.
 
An entrepreneur in the hot housing market of Oregon could buy up a 5 acre parcel and build like 20 of these tiny houses to make a fortune. The hipsters over here love tiny houses and for some reason like to live next to each other, despite hating human contact and trashing each other all day online. I could see this working, housing prices are only going up.
 
0neTwo said:
Cinder blocks are cheaper, stronger, faster, more versatile, will pass inspection.
Click to expand...

Individual cinder blocks are strong, but you have weak points on all side where the mortar connects each block. Adhesion with the mortar is the weak point. With this, you would have weakness between each row of concrete, where a wet line is laid on top of a drying line. So vertical would be questionable. But you would effectively have an infinitely homogeneous horizontal line.
 
i could see this being good for building somewhere where getting a ton of lumber and what not wouldn't be super easy. Long as you could get the machine there and the concrete you are good to go.
 
Makes me wonder is how they run things like electrical through the walls, you better like the positioning of all your outlets & switches because you can't change them. Or do they just do conduit and make it look all janky like a garage?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Makes me wonder is how they run things like electrical through the walls, you better like the positioning of all your outlets & switches because you can't change them. Or do they just do conduit and make it look all janky like a garage?
Click to expand...

Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, as well as simpler stuff like installing a header over a window or attaching cabinets to walls, and more complex like eliminating thermal bridging or water vapor management, are all ignored to keep the focus on the concrete spooging machine.

Common building materials have easily identifiable benefits and common building methods solve easily identifiable problems. What problem is being solved by "printing" a building? Why is concrete the best base material for this? What would be the cost of entry for a machine that could actually print a "house" and not just part of the walls?

Like building from shipping containers, it's kinda neat, but otherwise ridiculous.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top