what is 3D printed house examples, elements, advantages

Life-size houses that are constructed primarily using 3D printing are known as three-dimensional-printed houses. These extremely adaptable buildings can be constructed on-site or off-site in a matter of hours for a fraction of the price with little to no human involvement. Most 3D-printed homes have curved, free-form designs composed of a cement mixture. Projects range from livable beta prototypes for research to cheap housing that is ready for occupancy and even high-end luxury residences.

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However, to saving time and money, additive manufacturing has disrupted the building industry for a number of additional reasons. Many regard this kind of low-waste, automated homebuilding, which is printed on an industrial-scale printer, as a method to provide housing for underserved communities and a starting point for sustainable, biodegradable housing options.

Well, in this article I’ll be discussing about 3D printed house as the following questions will be discussed:

What is 3D printed house?
What are the examples of 3D printed house?
What are the elements of 3D printed house?
What is 3D printed house made of?
What are the lists of top companies involved in 3D printing house?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of 3D printed house?

Ok, let’s begin!

Contents

What is 3D printed house?

Better, easier, and cheaper. When compared to conventional building techniques, 3D-printed homes provide a sustainable, economical, and highly customized option that is altering the way we think about home construction. The future of home construction has transformed as a result of 3D printing seamlessly replacing a conventional construction system and pushing the envelope of innovation.

Furthermore, 3D printing, which is now synonymous with smart manufacturing, is a significant component of Industry 4.0 remolding construction as it currently exists. According to Grand View Research, the size of the global market was estimated to be USD 13.84 billion in 2021 and is projected to increase at a CAGR of 20.8% from 2022 to 2030.

However, 3D printer shipments reached 2.2 million units globally in 2021 and are projected to exceed 21.5 million in 2030.

What are the examples of 3D printed house?

Below are examples of 3D printed house:

KAMP C
HOUSE ZERO
HOUSE 1.0
BIOHOME3D
EAST 17TH STREET RESIDENCES

KAMP C

The Belgian manufacturer Kamp C 3D printed its named demo house on-site, in full, in just three weeks. The building’s three times increased compressive strength than normal brick, according to the developers, is partly attributable to a customized printer provided by COBOD, a 3D-printing construction company. The experimental model is reinforced by its smooth surfaces and thick layers. This house has two stories and was built in one piece, unlike other projects at the time and even today. It is 967 square feet, is little about 27 feet tall, and is about the size of a home telephone pole.

However, its environmentally friendly design makes use of heat pumps and solar panels to provide low-energy floor and ceiling heating.

HOUSE ZERO

Just outside of Austin, Texas’s downtown, ICON engaged with the architectural firm Lake|Flato to construct a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath apartment. Its rounded corners and curved walls are reinforced with steel and insulated with Lavacrete.

However, ICON’s website describes the 2,350-square-foot building, was printed in under two weeks and has a one-bedroom, one-bath auxiliary housing unit, as having “mid-century modernist ranch house characteristics.” Time included House Zero on its list of the Best Inventions of 2022 due to its intention to use net-zero energy. Since then, ICON has started construction on a 100-home project that is anticipated to be the largest 3D-printed residential complex in the country.

HOUSE 1.0

The first 3D-printed tiny house in Europe was built by the Danish organization 3DCP Group last year with the support of the 3D construction manufacturer COBOD. The building itself printed in just 22 hours. This 398 square foot building, which can be found in Hostelbro, Denmark, is made up of three parts that come together to form an open, triangle core. The apartment is economically designed and has all the utilities needed, including a bathroom, open-plan kitchen, living area, and loft-style bedroom on a raised level.

However, it was inspired by the no-frills aspect of student life. The project was developed for the lowest feasible cost, according to Sebastian Aristotelis, an architect at Saga Space Architects who designed House 1.0. The developers chose affordable materials, like concrete, and used a low-to-no-waste approach to construction.

BIOHOME3D

To address labor shortages and increase availability of affordable housing, the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center 3D prints home structures solely from bio-resins and wood fibers. The 600-square-foot prototype for the BioHome3D demonstration project has a floor and ceiling that are entirely 3D printed.

However, the complete one-bedroom, one-bathroom structure is composed entirely of biodegradable materials, including wood flour, and is 100 percent recyclable. The BioHome3D prototype is outfitted with monitoring sensors that gauge thermal, environmental, and structural factors in order to collect resilience-based information for future designs.

EAST 17TH STREET RESIDENCES

Open floor patterns, simple architectural design, and private yards are all features of these four Austin, Texas, houses built by the building 3D printing company ICON.

However, which range in size from 1,000 to 2,000 square feet, have two to four bedrooms. According to the company’s website, each ground floor level is constructed using “Lavacrete,” a proprietary cement-based compound that is designed to survive longer than conventional building materials. The second storey uses traditional construction techniques and is made of richly colored wood and black metal covering. They all share the same color scheme of terracotta, white, and green and have all been sold.

What are the elements of 3D printed house?

Below are the elements of 3D printed house:

Cement
Concrete
Aggregates
Gravel
Sand
Geopolymers

However, the dry powder is then combined with those substances and water to initiate a process that turns it into a thick liquid bulk.

What are 3D printed houses made of?

The model 3D-printed house’s flooring, walls, insulation, roof, and resins were all created using plant-based resins and wood fibers on what the institution claims to be the largest polymer 3D printer in the world.

What are the lists of top companies involved in 3D printed house?

Below are lists of some top companies involved in 3D printing house:

Peri 3D Construction
Icon
CyBe Construction
Apis Cor
Alquist 3D

Peri 3D Construction

Peri, established in Germany, has experience in the building sector. It is a top producer and supplier of formwork and scaffolding solutions globally. But more recently, the family-owned business has begun a number of 3D printing projects with Danish technology partner Cobod, which creates concrete 3D printers, having seen the writing on the wall. In 2018, Peri bought a stake in Cobod. The first printing house in Germany was officially opened in 2021 by Peri. The Peri 3D Construction Printing Team used a Cobod Bod2 concrete printer and HeidelbergCement’s i.tech 3D printing mortar to begin printing on September 17, 2020.

However, the Bavarian city of Wallenhausen serves as another illustration of the company’s status as a lighthouse. The largest apartment building in Europe was constructed by Peri and Rupp Gebäudedruck. It is 380 square meters in size and has three levels of living space for five families. With the exception of one showcase flat for possible clients, the building is entirely rented out.

Icon

Icon is a Texas-based company that creates cutting-edge building materials, software, and robotics. The company began with smaller charitable housing construction projects in underprivileged areas and has subsequently received hundreds of millions of dollars in financial funding to advance its technologies.

Furthermore, Icon is expanding its house-building efforts here on Earth to larger, mainstream American homes while collaborating with NASA on potential building techniques for habitation on the moon. The company claims that its Vulcan II construction 3D printer has been specifically created to manufacture stronger, more cheaper buildings with considerable design freedom, with an increased printing capacity of about 600 square meters. Using the exclusive Lavacrete material from Icon, the Vulcan can construct a complete house in just 24 hours. In Austin, Texas, the first Icon home was authorized and constructed in 2018.

However, the business has developed a homeless community in the Austin region in collaboration with the neighborhood nonprofit Mobil Loaves & Fishes. It’s referred to as Community First! Village and it has a collection of 400 square foot, one-bedroom houses. This year saw the opening of reservations for the Icon Genesis Collection project, one of the largest 3D-printed house developments to date. The project is a partnership between Lennar and Big-Bjarke Ingels Group. According to reports, the starting price for one of the 100 three- and four-bedroom homes in Wolf Ranch near Georgetown, Texas, is about $450,000.

CyBe Construction

A new office for such Dutch company CyBe Construction has just been established in Florida. It attempts to transform 3D printing for concrete. Furthermore, they have plans in place to offer 3D printed homes to the Caribbean with a new project on the island of Curacao. They were chosen to 3D print homes in the UAE and Canada. Three printers—the CyBe R 3Dp, CyBe RC 3Dp, and the CyBe G, their newest gantry-based model—as well as their proprietary mortar material are all produced by the business. The printers can print enormous structures at a pace of up to 500 mm/s in just 20 minutes, but they need two hands-on operators. The RC is a mobile printer that can move around a construction site freely thanks to its rubber tracks. According to CyBe, this printer may also be used to create abutments, floors, walls, formwork, and sewer pits, among other things.

However, the project in the UAE, CyBe finished another one in Dubai, where it was charged with 3D printing a 168-square-meter drone research and development facility. Using the portable 3D printer, the laboratory was printed on-site in three weeks.

Apis Cor

Apis Cor develops specialized machinery that can print a full building (including its walls and structures) on the spot. Their goal is to create fully autonomous machinery that can print buildings both on Earth and in other planetary systems. The business erected a new showroom in Florida to showcase its technology because it is so confident in the ability to 3D print homes. Their 3D printing technology makes it possible to print a full house in any place in less than 24 hours. A mobile 3D printer that can be put up in only 30 minutes is part of the solution, along with a mobile automated mix and supply unit.

Furthermore, layer by layer, using mixed concrete, the 132 m2 Apis Cor 3D printer builds walls. Its stability technology makes it possible to put it practically anywhere with an elevation difference of under 10 cm. (The majority of other printers need a level, flat concrete base.) Apis Cor gained notoriety in 2017 when they completed a full-scale house in just 24 hours. The 3D printed home was constructed in Russia, and Apis Cor employed “dry insulating material on one half of the house and polyurethane filler composition on the other” to adapt it to the local climate. Apis Cor participated in NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge. The objective was to encourage the development of new technology that could additively create a habitat out of natural resources. First-place winners in Construction Level 1 and fourth-place finishers in Virtual Design Level 1 were Apis Cor and SEArch + Team.

However, this is the most effective way to swiftly spread the technology around the world, Apis Cor is currently aiming to make its equipment as autonomous as possible. Apis Cor is certain that, if their technology is refined, they can start to address the issue of inexpensive housing that is plaguing many areas.

Alquist 3D

By using 3D printing, this building startup from Iowa hopes to improve the supply of affordable housing. Its next attempt is a 200-house target in Virginia, starting with two homes in the town of Pulaski, with only one completed home under its belt. Printing was finished as of December 2022, and the two homes should be finished by March 2023.

However, Alquist collaborates with the manufacturer of construction 3D printers Black Buffalo to produce its dwellings.

What are advantages and disadvantages of 3D printed house?

Advantages

Below are the advantages of 3D printed house:

INFINITE DESIGN POSSIBILITIES
RELATIVELY LOW-COST
SAVES A LOT OF TIME

INFINITE DESIGN POSSIBILITIES

Along with reduced construction costs and time savings, 3D printing offers still another fantastic opportunity. Certain design restrictions apply to outdated construction techniques. These restrictions are not present with this cutting-edge technology, though.

However, the architects’ innovative and original concept is being brought to life with the use of 3D printing technology.

RELATIVELY LOW-COST

The first benefit of 3D printed homes, in terms of both advantages and disadvantages, is their affordable price. There are various ways in which this technology lowers costs. It completely removes the expense because there is no need to pay laborers for constructions.

However, building homes at such low costs is now conceivable thanks to 3D printing, which is not feasible using conventional building techniques. It should go without saying that being able to construct homes at a lower cost might be advantageous for those with modest incomes.

SAVES A LOT OF TIME

A 3D printed house can be constructed immediately from a computer design. Construction is quick and error-free as a result. It is feasible to construct a home’s framework in a single day rather than over the course of several months. Consider the American construction startup Icon.

However, they created a system that allows a 650 square foot, one-story 3D printed structure to be built in just 24 hours. Even nations like China and Russia are beginning to employ 3D printing technology.

Disadvantages

Below are the disadvantages 3D printed house:

NEGATIVE IMPACT ON MANPOWER
DIFFICULTY FINDING RAW MATERIALS

NEGATIVE IMPACT ON MANPOWER

In this era of digitalization, many vocations have already been automated. And if 3D printing technology is fully developed, it will undoubtedly have an impact on both the housing market and the labor force. Construction employees will be placed in danger because of the sharp decline in demand for qualified laborers. The livelihood of those who provide the tools and materials for building will also be in danger. Bangladeshis who labor diligently as construction workers in the Middle East provide a significant portion of the nation’s remittances. To work in construction, they don’t need a lot of specific training.

However, building a 3D-printed home requires specialized abilities that the average person in the construction industry lacks. This technology will consequently negatively affect Bangladesh’s remittances.

DIFFICULTY FINDING RAW MATERIALS

Finding high-quality building supplies has been challenging since individuals started employing 3D printing technology to create homes. The raw materials used in 3D printers and conventional construction are not the same.

However, there aren’t many materials available today that can be printed in 3D. In addition, the majority of printers require particular materials. Thus, it might not be possible to utilize the ink from one printer’s raw materials in another.

FAQs

How much does it cost to build a 3D printed house?

This sounds like a great deal considering the $400,000–$500,000 range for new homes. But keep in mind that only a small number of businesses can now produce homes using 3D printing. The cost of the necessary equipment to 3D-print a house might range from $180,000 to over $1 million.

What is 3D printed house made of?

What are the disadvantages of 3D-printed houses?

Below are the disadvantages of 3D printed house:

Material Types.
Engineering Compatibility.
Building Codes.

How long do 3D-printed houses last?

A well-built 3D-printed home could endure at least 100 years and possibly much longer than 300 years, according to comparable benchmarks. A well-constructed object has no delamination between its 3D-printed layers and has been properly hydrated during the construction process.

Are 3D printed houses strong?

A 3D house is secure enough to bear a lot of additional strain thanks to the concrete and unique pre-engineered truss system. As a result, you can rely on your 3D-printed concrete to: Fires. powerful winds.

Can you live in a 3D printed house?

Even though you might be hesitant to live in a 3D-printed house, these buildings are undoubtedly livable. According to Patel, “3D homes are strong enough to be lived in, especially as they are composed of concrete.”

What are disadvantages of 3D printing?

Below are the disadvantages of 3D printing:

Restricted Build Size.
Post Processing.
Large Volumes.
Part Structure.
Reduction in Manufacturing Jobs.
Design Inaccuracies.
Copyright Issues.
Limited Materials.

Which country has 3D printed house?

startup in India in just 21 days in 2021, Tvasta constructed the first 3D-printed home in the nation. The start-up created a process that, according to its claims, uses 3D printing to accelerate, sustain, and improve the cost of building dwellings.

Which country 3D printed a home?

The first 3D-printed house in Germany is a two-story detached home. It has a two-story building with around 860 square feet of usable space on each floor. The BOD2 3D printer is being used to construct this project.

Can you 3D print concrete?

Buildings, homes, or construction components can be fabricated in whole new shapes using 3D concrete printing (3DCP), a type of cementitious additive manufacturing that is not yet conceivable with conventional concrete formwork.

That is all for this article, where we’ve discussed the answers to the following questions:

What is 3D printed house?
What are the examples of 3D printed house?
What are the elements of 3D printed house?
What is 3D printed house made of?
What are the lists of top companies involved in 3D printing house?
What are advantages and disadvantages of 3D printed house?

Everything you need to know about modular construction

I hope you learn a lot from the reading. If you do, kindly share it with others. Thanks for reading; see you around!

3D printed house