A Giant 3-D Printer Builds Ten Houses in One Day

In a pretty interesting development, this article talks about a Chinese company named WinSun Decoration Design Engineering that has developed a giant 3-D printing machine which can 3-D print houses. Pretty interesting...

Chinese company WinSun Decoration Design Engineering has constructed a set of ten single story, 3D-printed homes which it produced in under 24 hours. The homes, printed in prefabricated panels which fit together on site, were created using WinSun’s custom-built 3D printer which measures 10 meters by 6.6 meters, and took the company twelve years to develop.

Formed with a cement-based mixture containing construction waste and glass fiber, each of the houses cost just $5,000 to build.

This news gets me thinkling about the potential for 3-D printing; I mean, the possibilities are really endless. I'm thinking we can build really large Spaceships to travel the Stars. I mean like really large Space-freighters. What says ATS?

www.huffingtonpost.com...

That is really neat.

Wow starred and flagged.

I love stuff like this.

Looks like housing is about to get really affordable. This is in it's infancy stages but as time progresses expect refinements, solid homes, energy efficient, affordable, and done in a matter of days.

I bet Walmart or the like will purchase this or work with the company to provide cheap, low income housing. They'll make it look attractive and safe. Homes for different needs: singles, families, small apartments. With affordable internet/tv, maybe food delivery, even employment at Walmart.

It will be a total nightmare and another victory for them.

Wow, that's crazy! A little scary too... the future is really here, I guess... I can imagine some people walking around their neighbourhood and...

"Hey, where did THAT house come from?"
"Oh, they printed it last night."

Cool thread.

a reply to: lostbook

I'm so waiting for 3D printers to finally make a real impact in our lives, it has the potential to be the biggest revolution humans have ever known.

Finally a society of real abundance where the only limitation really exists in our minds, where the word printed would replace the world manufactured. It's gonna take so many people out of work and will give us no other way but to evolve out of the old ways of living.

Just like the internet, you cannot stop what's coming.

What material are they using ? Plastic ? Plastic is OIL. An oil home. These houses are going to be sooooooo expensive. A normal wage earner could not afford. Way to high for me. I'll have to live in a 108 sq. ft. shack tiny house living. Today's houses and economy noone will be able to truly own a home that is payed off. 80% of the people today, only make payments on a home, they don't own.
Rental America.

originally posted by: cloaked4u
What material are they using ? Plastic ? Plastic is OIL. An oil home. These houses are going to be sooooooo expensive. A normal wage earner could not afford. Way to high for me. I'll have to live in a 108 sq. ft. shack tiny house living. Today's houses and economy noone will be able to truly own a home that is payed off. 80% of the people today, only make payments on a home, they don't own.
Rental America.

Strait from the very short OP..

cement-based mixture containing construction waste and glass fiber, each of the houses cost just $5,000 to build.

From the article.

with 3D-printing, we are able to recycle construction waste and turn it into new building materials. This would create a much safer environment for construction workers and greatly reduce construction costs.”

It is scary how many people don't read anymore.

Anyway, this is pretty awesome. I mean the homes aren't what one would call luxurious by any means but they do look structurally sound. I imagine a big market for these would be in disaster situations where people have lost their homes. Consider the housing problem after Katrina or in Haiti after the earthquakes. With just a few printers a village or small town could be erected in no time using available materials. Yes it is pretty green.

originally posted by: cloaked4u
What material are they using ?

It's even less green than a plastic house; concrete. Technically likely a mortar-like material, with a plasticizer to aid in flow, that is applied over a steel skeleton.

From the looks of it, it appears to be the natural progression of the Styrofoam/concrete/Styrofoam basements you see in new construction. I even saw cavities in the monolithic pour that looks like they could be filled with expanding foam, further adding rigidity and insulative properties.

a reply to: lostbook

It's really incredible the things we can invent as a society, the advancements in production, the use of recycled materials etc. But in the end are we really doing ourselves any favors when jobs are at an all time minimum? Next they will all join together to common walls with common plumbing and electrical, everyone will stand back and say wow they were geniuses to come up with this while the unemployment line grows.

As we sit back and use ATM machines every day, self checkout, automated phone systems, and have a society trained to be accustomed to little or no customer service we are shooting ourselves in the foot. With something like this craftsmanship will soon be a thing of the past, want a new cheap house push a button, want a dog house push a button, we will have a push button world with little jobs, little pride in ownership, craftsmanship, and individualism.

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
I bet Walmart or the like will purchase this or work with the company to provide cheap, low income housing. They'll make it look attractive and safe. Homes for different needs: singles, families, small apartments. With affordable internet/tv, maybe food delivery, even employment at Walmart.

It will be a total nightmare and another victory for them.

Correct.

A small part of me sees how this could help low income people.

The bigger part of me sees Agenda 21 and the megacities.

I hesitated replying to this thread.

Here is the thing with current construction:
You start with what as known as the ruff, a period of weeks to months of laying out drains, main electrical power, the slab for the building to sit on etc. Then the ruff carpenters come in and start building stud walls which facade and interior walls are built around. etc etc.

What this 3-d printing does is the equivalent of what is known as a tilt up.
en.wikipedia.org...

It saves some labor costs, but really doesn't do a thing for time or safety, when it comes to actually building a house.

a reply to: lostbook

What they need to do is take the printer on the road, and have it print every single thing in the house, from the foundations up to the raw walls,floors, ceilings, staircases, and landings.

Panels are all very well, but what we really need to see, is a house sized printer, that literally prints a house template ready for wiring, plumbing and plastering, with the channels for the pipes and wires already printed into the design. Also, because a printed house using the method I describe would be made of one solid mass, it would have better rigidity and be less prone to cracking plaster issues, than a house made of prefab panels.

Maybe you will be able to get a combo deal someday. 1 house, one free printed organ of your choosing when needed and a voucher for free upsizing mcdonalds meals or free pudding for life. On another note I find 3d printing quite cool.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Here is how one of the onsight printers may look in the future.

While I agree these will take away many construction jobs and be less expensive it is inevitable it is also the argument people have said about moving manufacturing jobs overseas. Considering median wage is dropping the hope of owning a home is as well so this may bring homes back to being affordable.

3-D printing is shaping up to be the thing of the future. It simplifies so many processes that take either to much time and/or money. We are becoming almost post human with this technology. As a start up inventor, prototyping has become a breeze. We live in amazing times indeed.

Very lively discussion here and thanks to everyone for their input. Now, I wonder where will this technology will lead us...?

originally posted by: randomtangentsrme
I hesitated replying to this thread.

Here is the thing with current construction:
You start with what as known as the ruff, a period of weeks to months of laying out drains, main electrical power, the slab for the building to sit on etc. Then the ruff carpenters come in and start building stud walls which facade and interior walls are built around. etc etc.

What this 3-d printing does is the equivalent of what is known as a tilt up.
en.wikipedia.org...

It saves some labor costs, but really doesn't do a thing for time or safety, when it comes to actually building a house.

I have to disagree since this technology is in it's infancy stages. I have been in construction for a good portion of my life and have seen custom build, and production build homes.

If this technology is tweeked just right and refined prefabricated panels, roofs, walls with incorporated wire and plumbing would be fairly easy.

Slabs can be set before the house is placed, and so can most of the rough plumbing, which is and always will be the case regardless if the home is build custom, or by a production line.

I'm going to keep my eye on this one for sure, because it appears that they are using recycled material. Now couple this with Hemp plastics, and soy based insulation foams with very low (VOC's), or volatile organic compounds, then I believe they have a winner.

They will not be pretty in the beginning, just like the full production model-t's, but when this ship gets full steam we'll see some amazing things.

Granted detail work will always be done by skilled labor, but looking at what is going on here will revolutionize building smaller homes for sure.

Really amazing, Ive used 3d printers before, but this takes it to a whole other level. Their are a huge amount of positives for using this tech, but the only downside to this, is that many construction workers in the future will not be needed. Which will bring the housing cost down. Still I welcome this technology with open arms. I can think of many other items that will eventually be made using 3d printing