News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
A consortium of companies that operate in the construction and in the construction 3D printing area are participating in a selection in Holland to present new concepts for automated production of 3D printed circular viaducts, as part of the HONEYCOMB project.
PERI GmbH is building the first 3D printed residential building in Germany, and precisely in Beckum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The two-story detached house with approx. 80 sqm of living space per floor is being built with a COBOD system that PERI uses to provide 3D printing construction services. This segment is booming way beyond anyone could have imaged (except us: three years ago, when only a handful of companies were active, we forecast a €40 billion dollar industry by 2027, among general skepticism)
In anticipation of the 2024 Olympic Games, Plaine Commune Grand Paris has awarded the Freyssinet / Lavigne & Cheron Architects / Quadric / XtreeE / LafargeHolcim consortium the design-build of a 40-meter pedestrian footbridge in Paris whose deck will be entirely made of 3D printed structural concrete.
Yes, we write about 3D printing but we are by no means obligated to only write about 3D printing. We can just as easily cover competing, synergistic or similar technological approaches. Especially when they are as fascinating as the LightVault created by Princeton researchers using robots to deposit glass bricks. And who’s to say that bricklaying is not an additive process anyways?
It’s no longer a secret – if you’ve been following this website – that concrete 3D printing is skyrocketing. As further proof, the technology is now expanding beyond construction, into decorative products and even pranks. Video creator and technology reviewer Jerry Rig Everything turned to Pikus Concrete, developers of a concrete 3D printing system, to play the coolest prank on his best friend, who had recently moved away. How? with a 3D printed statue of himself, of course.
ASU Professor Narayanan Neithalath and four colleagues have been awarded the $2 million 3DConcrete grant from the National Science Foundation to foster collaboration around concrete 3D printing research across more than a dozen countries. Construction 3D printing technology generated these examples shown with Sooraj Nair, a doctoral student in Neithalath’s lab group. The technique offers the potential to change the nature of construction.
Twente Additive Manufacturing is a 3D printed concrete startup with a presence in the Netherlands and Canada. They sell a range of concrete printers and also print on demand for projects that make sense logistically. TAM’s next high profile construction 3D printing project is the Fibonacci House.
On the occasion of World Science Day, LafargeHolcim signed a new partnership with Southeast University in Nanjing, China, where it is sponsoring research into concrete and mortars for on-site construction 3D printing. Leading the way in green building solutions, LafargeHolcim is using 3D printing to make construction more efficient while lowering its carbon footprint, aiming to become a full 3D printing solutions provider.
Since Danish construction company COBOD spun out of 3D Printhuset in 2018, it has made steady advances in pushing construction AM towards the mainstream. In the past year alone, its gantry AM technology has been used for a handful of large-scale projects, including building over three demo houses at the the International Bautec construction exhibition and printing a residential building in Beckum, Germany. Most recently, COBOD’s technology is being used to construct a three-floor apartment building.
Located in the Jiangsu region, the town of Suzhou is a former mining town that has been completely rebuilt, attracting investments from some of the largest construction companies in the world. Old mines have been rapidly transformed into beautiful parks bringing the city to its former glory when it gave birth to several Chinese emperors. As the city moves into the future, one particularly innovative project stands out, conducted by construction 3D printing company Winsun: the very first 3D printed river revetment wall, over 500 meters long, is the largest 3D printed structure ever built.