Digital 3D Printing of Super-Green Houses is Happening Now

[Flaxbee]

This is just really, super incredibly cool. Additive manufacturing (of more than homes - of everything) is the future, and the homes are really beautiful:

http://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/green-architecture/digital-house-moves-prototype-reality-facit/

Here's one of the companies: http://www.facit-homes.com/index.php

Here's another story:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/in-denmark-a-printable-house/6130?tag=nl.e660

In a forest north of Copenhagen, Danish architects Frederik Agdrup and Nicholas Bjorndal of Eentileen used just a computer, a printer and 820 sheets of plywood to build a 125 square meter (1,345 square foot) home in four weeks. Named Villa Asserbo, the home is the pilot project of Eentileen’s Print a House project. The designers are touting the process of mass-customizing houses and responsibly producing them on site.

Matthew Stock’s video report for Reuters presents the first Danish digitally fabricated house, and what its designers hope will be the house of the future.

Eentileen’s Print a House process begins as a 3D model which is translated into a manufacturing template and sent to a printer, i.e. a CNC machine. The CNC machine, a computerized milling machine, then cuts sheets of plywood into pieces that can be slotted and fitted together. The architects developed their method to maximize efficiency, minimize environmental impact, and reduce construction errors in the building process. Agdrup and Bjorndal say that their Print a House method allows a house to be built by two people without heavy machinery.

(more at link)


Anyway. Just posting if anyone's interested.

[Flaxbee]

1. No one? Really?

I'm the only one fascinated by this?

[rug]

2. I saw a small version of 3D printing in my son's technology class in high school.

Absolutely astounding.

I can't imagine it on the scale of a house.

Thanks for posting this. I'll show it to him.

[Flaxbee]

3. Additive manufacturing - what this is - is the future

As opposed to subtractive, where you take a bunch of product and whittle it away to the product you want (simple example: cutting a tree to carve a chair) vs. additive - the 3D printing - where you add elements to build the product.

Additive tends to be much much more 'green' and much less wasteful.

It also means manufacturing can easily come back to the U.S. because huge ginormous factories that we shut down decades ago don't necessarily need to be rebuilt. There is some start up cost to starting an additive manufacturing facility, but it isn't nearly as $$ as the big, subtractive manufacturing facilities used to cost.

[rug]

4. Once they are able to layer different types of materials this may well be Star Trek time.

[madinmaryland]

5. Sonia was successful!!!!!!

Our daughter is sound asleep!

[Flaxbee]

6. Does Sonia babysit?

One of our kitties, Silver, babysits me before bed -- she usually hangs around until my husband calls it a night; then she leaves, but not until she's sure I'm all tucked in.

mad!

[kentauros]

7. It looks great, and I do love prefab!

However, there is one issue that no one ever seems to cover and was nicely pointed out in one comment on the TreeHugger.com link:

I would love to build one too... unfortunately, the Codes, Covenants and Restrictions in our county ONLY allow stick built houses... so, I am not sure as to whether or not a modular house such as this would be allowed... How many other counties have CCR's that would disallow this kind of construction?

We need to change how local authorities view prefab constructions before we get all excited about having one

I would also be curious to know how well they do down here, in the hurricane zones...