News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Italian construction robotics company WASP has finished building Itaca, the country’s first certified 3D printed residential structure, using a four-arm robotic system at its Shamballa laboratory in Northern Italy.
Geelong city council has tasked Deakin University and local carpet and flooring manufacturer Godfrey Hirst with exploring a solution to convert carpet manufacturing waste into feedstock for 3D printing.
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a process for 3D printing construction-grade structural elements using recycled plastic.
A team of interdisciplinary researchers at Cornell University is making significant progress in a bid to successfully 3D print concrete underwater, in response to a project call from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued in the fall of 2024. The challenge was for proposals to meet a deadline to design 3D printable concrete that can be deposited at depths of several meters underwater within a year.
Obayashi Corporation, one of Japan’s leading construction companies, has further underlined its reputation as a pioneer in the construction and architecture space, with the installation of the three-meter high metal 3D printed “the brænch” at its Technology Research Institute in Kiyose, Tokyo.
The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) has inaugurated a 3D printed concrete security cabin, marking a significant milestone in sustainable construction and advanced manufacturing technologies in India.
Construction 3D printing technologies are being used to build myriad structures, from student housing blocks, to pedestrian bridges, to military bunkers. Soon, we will see 3D printing used to build a new parish church in Czechia. The project, to be the first of its kind, was recently given the blessing of the Archdiocese of Prague, who recognized the potential of the technology to build a place of worship with an innovative design and acoustics, while also bringing down building costs.
Shimizu Corporation, a Japanese construction, architecture, and engineering firm established in 1804, has developed a spray-based 3D concrete printing system designed for the construction of large, curved reinforced components. The system integrates a nine-degree-of-freedom gantry robot with a material spray simulator that enables verification of sprayed-material behavior in advance. This enables highly accurate, automated fabrication of reinforced structural components and large components with complex geometries, applications that were difficult to realize using conventional material extrusion printing. The material spray simulator incorporated into the system was jointly developed with the Computational Engineering and Robotics Lab (CERLAB), led by Professor Kenji Shimada of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
A team of researchers from the Polyhedral Structures Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania has unveiled a new flooring installation that demonstrates how 3D printing and cutting-edge design can be combined to create structures that significantly reduce concrete consumption and, consequently, the carbon footprint of construction. The project, called “3D-Printed Dual-Banded High-Performance Concrete Floor”, is led by Dr. Masoud Akbarzadeh, Associate Professor of Architecture and director of the Polyhedral Structures Laboratory (PSL).
SCG has completed a 3D printed pedestrian bridge spanning Bangkok’s historic Ong Ang Canal, marking one of Thailand’s first uses of large-scale digital fabrication for public infrastructure. The project, finished in 2025 under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s canal revitalization program, combines architectural innovation with local cultural references and sustainability-focused materials research.