News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Siam Cement Group (SCG), the largest and oldest cement and building material company in Thailand and Southeast Asia, has completed the first two-story 3D printed building in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – in the form of a medical center. The center boasts a total floor area of 345m², is located in Saraburi, Thailand, and was constructed using a COBOD BOD2 3D concrete printer.
A recent study by COBOD International has found that there are 129 3D printed buildings spread over 105 distinct construction sites, globally – 40% (51 buildings) of which exist thanks to COBOD’s 3D construction printers. The company with the second highest number of 3D printed buildings is Icon, with 15 3D printed buildings, followed by Winsun, Cybe, and xtreeE – each being responsible for the construction of five 3D printed buildings.
Hospitality visionary Liz Lambert and her team have joined forces with ICON, a leader of advanced construction technologies pioneering large-scale 3D printing, and BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, a world-renowned architecture firm, to reimagine and rebuild El Cosmico, currently a 21-acre unique campground hotel in Marfa, TX.
Black Buffalo 3D Corporation (BB3D) has been awarded the gold Global Innovation award at The Nationals, presented by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The award is in recognition of providing the first 3D printed construction solution to comply with the International Code Council Evaluation Service’s (ICC-ES) standards for structural walls – ICC-ES AC509. The NAHB Global Innovation award recognizes the most advanced and cutting-edge original products, services, homes, communities, and champions of the building industry, worldwide. This year had the largest pool of applicants, with over 70 companies competing for the Gold Award.
Diamond Age, a full-stack robotics innovator with the mission of using automation to make homeownership more affordable, has recently been revealed as the creator of the technology that was used to print Century Complete’s Mountain View Estates in Casa Grande, Arizona. The 3D printed homes are the first to be created using Diamond Age’s Factory-in-the-Field technology.
The Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in Dubai (IACAD) has announced its plans to build the world’s first 3D printed Mosque. The construction of the 2,000 square meter mosque, in Bur Dubai, is expected to start in October 2023, and have the capacity for 600 worshippers by early 2025.
Century Communities, one of the top US homebuilders and an industry leader in online sales, has launched its first community of 3D printed homes, under the Century Complete brand. The new homes infuse signature floor plans with smooth interior and exterior concrete composite walls that offer durability, sustainability, and noise reduction in a stylish yet traditional architectural package.
GUtech, the German University of Technology in Oman and a pioneer in construction 3D printing, completed the 3D printing of 3 new buildings in Duqm, 540 km from the capital of Oman, where GU Tech is located. The construction took just 8 days and it represents a performance nobody has matched before for this type of on-location 3D printing.
Approximately 200 miles north of San Francisco, surrounded by national forests, lies Redding with its population of 100,000. Not one of California’s most famous locations, the city was affected by the numerous forest fires that hit the city. Redding is experiencing more than 100 fires per year. The Redding area got hit the worst in 2018 in the Carr fire, where 1,100 houses were lost to the fires, 270 of these directly in the town of Redding. Neighboring Paradise lost more than 11,000 homes, causing damages of 16 billion USD and 85 fatalities.
Europe had it first 3-story 3D printed building made in Germany by PERI using COBOD technology in 2021, and now Asia also has one. While North America may lead the development in terms of the amount of new 3D printed buildings, Europe and The Middle East are clearly leading the way in the use of 3D construction printing technology to create larger and larger buildings. With its 9.9 meters in total height, the Dar Al Arkan villa in Saudi Arabia is the tallest on-site 3D printed building in the world.