First, he 3-D printed a castle. Now he wants to print a whole village

Andrey Rudenko, a Russian born contractor, built a castle layer by layer with a 3-D printer. Now he has plans to build an entire village. He's not sure where he will build the town yet but he's looking for Architects, designers, and/or any other creative types who want to contribute to his grand idea.

He knows it won't be easy. It was hard enough to build his small castle in his back yard. Rudenko constructed his own large 3-D printer for the task. These machines normally lay down layers of plastic to build everything from toys to prosthetic limbs.

Rudenko configured it to exude cement, which had to be mixed in the perfect proportion to avoid it clogging up the printer or not drying correctly.

"Printing an entire finished structure on-site definitely has big advantages," he said. "My technology produces the whole structure with no unnecessary labor or the use of cranes and transportation trucks to put blocks together."

Before he moves on to the village, he wants to build a full-scale 3-D printed house. He says the 3-D printer could create everything: the walls, staircases, columns, kitchen islands and more.

Wow, things are really taking shape domestically right when things are falling apart internationally. Not to drift in my own thread but I have to wonder if this new technology is what mankind can use to build really big Spaceships; Enterprise sized ones that will take us to the Stars..A few 3D printers can do the work in orbit that we would need several rocket launches of heavy machinery or equipment to do. Habitats on other worlds are more easily achievable as well, and the best part about that is that we could use readily available materials.

Back to the topic at hand. Andrey Rudenko, the Russian born contractor who now lives in Minnesota, is an innovator and part of the 3-D printing revolution that is upon us. One day everything will be 3-D or 4-D printed and 3-D printed villages will lend to 3-D printed cities. This tech has the potential to truly give us the next great leap forward. What says ATS?

www.today.com...

I read a lot of SciFi and in a story I read not long ago, this was how houses were built. You picked the style you wanted and rented the equipment from a business, set it up and fed in the design. Come back a day later and you have a new house, ready to move in to. I'm torn between the idea of easily and cheaply building your own home and the idea that a lot of carpenters could be out of business with an invention like that. I think, in the future, carpenters will be a rare breed, considered experts to be consulted when a "old time" wood building needs care.

The sooner they figure out how to print food from synthetic proteins the world might actually change

a reply to: lostbook My suggestion for a village is Diagon Alley.

originally posted by: Ceeker63
a reply to: lostbook My suggestion for a village is Diagon Alley.

That would be cool. I envision the Spaceport in Star Trek 3.

Ahhhh, reading these stories would be a lot more fun with pictures...

Here is the castle he built:

a reply to: lostbook

I wonder how printed structures would fare in the kind of weather we get in the central U.S..

It seems like-about once a year-we get hurricane like storms.

Hurricane Elvis caught us with our pants down-I woke up thinking that a jet liner was seconds from coming through my roof.

Our houses are mainly old and made of wood,so there is always some pretty serious structure damage.

Maybe the guy can print a house out of titanium for me.

originally posted by: Skywatcher2011
Ahhhh, reading these stories would be a lot more fun with pictures...

Here is the castle he built:

By the looks of the light being cast inside that castle, it looks as if he failed to 3D print the roof.

a reply to: FalcoFan

I was thinking the same thing. It seems the 3D printed structures are layered on top of each other. Maybe over some reinforcement steel or something.
But from my knowledge of 'layering' stuff if there isn't proper fusion between the last layer and the one being laird out top it puts the whole structure at risk, hence why weldments are always better than rivets or bolts.
How fast is this thing made? is the concrete or cement still wet when the second layer and so forth are added on top?