News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
The town of Holstebro in Denmark just got a new landmark: Europe’s largest 3D printed housing project. The ambitious build, called Skovsporet (“The Forest Trail”), will ultimately consist of 36 student apartments, whose walls are made using COBOD’s BOD3 construction 3D printer. The project has just completed its 3D printing phase and is now preparing to move into the interior construction phase.
The integration of 3D printing processes into architecture is no longer a novelty. The advantages that additive manufacturing offers architects are also widely known. Complex geometries can be realized more easily, costs can be saved, and functionalities can be integrated directly into designs and construction plans. This integration of functions, however, can be taken even further. The Meristem Wall, a project at Lund University led by two Swedish innovative architects, David Andreen and Ana Goidea, who formed the bioDigital matter lab, uses voxeljet sand binder jetting technology to take the wall’s functionality to a new level, without compromising on aesthetics.
Combining one of the world’s most sustainable, available and strong materials with the inherently sustainable, tool-less construction 3D printing technologies could be a game-changer. However 3D printing hemp is difficult at best, as 3D printing pioneer Andry Rudenko – also a developer of both hemp-based material and construction 3D printing technologies – recently explained to 3dpbm. An Australian, Perth-based company, MIRRECO, said they are developing a CAST® hemp-based construction 3D printing process that will also be able to store CO2 removed from the atmosphere.
SQ4D has upped the ante in the American construction 3D printing game. The company, which last July unveiled a 500-square-foot home it 3D printed in under 12 hours, has just completed the construction of an even more impressive structure. The new building, 3D printed in just 48 hours (over an eight day period), spans 1,900 square feet and cost less than $6,000 in materials to build.
New York-based 3D printing firm S-Squared 3D Printers Inc. (SQ3D) says it has completed construction of the largest 3D printed home in the world using its Autonomous Robotic Construction System (ARCS). The 3D printed building spans 500 ft² and reportedly took under 12 hours to complete.
What’s better than one 3D printing construction robot? Scientists from NTU Singapore would likely say two construction robots. And seeing what the research team has been capable of, I can’t say I disagree.