I'm so surprised that people have not heard of the late R.G. LeTourneau. The man was a mechanical genius, and the father of modern earth moving machinery.<p>Here's a video of his Concrete House Machine from 1946: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWjyZO2lPU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWjyZO2lPU</a><p>This was 70 years ago! I read about them in his autobiography "Mover of Men and Mountains". He went with concrete because it was cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter. Seems to me the "Not Invented Here" mentality has been around for a very long time.
A lot of people are commenting (correctly) that any cost savings achieved here are trivial relative to the land cost. I think this is looking at this tech too narrowly though. There are many areas of architecture that can be revolutionized by cheap, accurate mass-customization.<p>One example would be energy. Right now heat transfer and the transmission of daylight through walls/windows can be theoretically optimized to reduce energy costs simply by customizing the geometry of the windows and walls relative to their orientation and local context. We don't do so in architecture because the costs of customizing the geometry is too expensive. Architecture has a history of attempting mass-customization since the 1960s[1], but it's always been limited by the technology and realities of integrating multiple subcontractors and consultants. Those problems still exist, but the industry is changing pretty fast and I feel automated form generation, simulation, optimization, and production technologies are converging to a point when this could be achieved.<p>[1] i.e John Habraken.
I think this should be primarily interesting for buildings with special form which are hard or expensive to build with traditional methods. The price is not the selling point here, at least not in Russia. Russia has a lot of cheap labor from the southern ex-USSR countries like Tadjikistan. So $10k for 38qm is not really cheap. You can build a 150qm two-floor house for around $25k. Also $277 for the foundation seems a bit suspicious, should be much more expensive.<p>"the radius of curvature of the TV matches the house wall curvature" pretty much looks like a PR stunt for Samsung. I wonder if they've actually chosen curved walls to somehow justify curved TV.
I find the notion of 3D printing a house intriguing but it seems ultimately impractical. There are better ways to manufacture homes that can be componentized and transported for final assembly on site. One where I visited the factory was the BluHomes[1]. You can automate much of the construction of walls and wiring and finishing if you do it in sections.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bluhomes.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bluhomes.com/</a>
Discussion on reddit from 2 days ago: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5xf7sf/a_russian_company_just_3d_printed_a_400/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5xf7sf/a_russia...</a><p>Apparently the $10k includes electrical, windows, etc.
This is not new. China already has company that can 3D print a real two-story house. See this <a href="https://3dprint.com/138664/huashang-tengda-3d-print-house/" rel="nofollow">https://3dprint.com/138664/huashang-tengda-3d-print-house/</a><p>This article also mentioned another Chinese competitor can 3d-print 6-story apartment and a mansion.
While this is clearly an impressive technical feat, I can't help thinking of the carbon footprint of creating a house out of concrete, which is notoriously un-environmentally friendly, and difficult to deal with when the structure is no longer required. Hopefully a more environmentally-sound material will be used. There's not a single mention on that page of the carbon footprint of the building method used, and I think it would be interesting to compare physically identical (as much as possible) buildings of different construction (3d printed like this, bricks and mortar, pre-fab wooden/osb panels, etc), particularly when the tag line of the article is:<p>"We Are Building the Future Today."
Cool tech, but...<p>Curved walls only look good from the outside. Design looks like something someone who has never built a house before drew up. Things like a sofa that can't face the TV screen, or ostensibly a bathroom that you have to walk through the bedroom to get to.<p>Also everything looks very narrow. I want to see them build a real house this way, something with full-sized doors (36"), full-sized washers and dryers, something with 2 levels, something with actual electrical outlets (I see none in the video or pictures).<p>I can slap together a shed without plumbing or electricity in a day. Boasting about the price, showing electrical appliances, but not including the electrical wiring... let's be kind and just call that some "optimistic marketing." I mean... It doesn't even look like they have a real foundation... And small point... if they are going for speed, why are they using a roller to apply paint? Spray would do a better job and cut the painting time more than 50%.
Around here houses are still built on site, stick by stick. The only things built off site are the roof trusses.<p>I don't understand why all the walls, at least, aren't built in a warehouse and then trucked in. It could be built cheaper, more precise, with far less wastage. Holes for electrical, plumbing and HVAC could be already put in. Even windows can be pre-installed.<p>(I know that part of the problem is architects under-design houses, leaving it up to the contractors to figure out how to route electrical, plumbing and HVAC on-site.)
What is the outcome of housing this cheap? This is one more option in a growing list that includes inflatable concrete structures, and Tumbleweed houses, prefab cabins, etc etc.<p>Is this cheap enough to house people in third world countries. Probably not yet, but could it be on the way? And I'm sure construction costs aren't even the primary economic factor to solve...<p>Is it possible this trend could make vacation housing for affluent people disposable?<p>I love the idea of having a tiny house or even two I can move around, but I suspect, knowing me, that it wouldn't get used and would take more maintenance than I'm really truly interested in.
I have a slight feeling that this won't become very widespread on Earth - simply put, the thing is too small to be able to construct a house larger than a typical 1-family house.<p>However, taking such a thing and sending it up to Mars or the Moon, now there's a potential for "real" prefabricated housing.
Oh man, I'd sure like me some Samsung Nano Crystal Color Revolutionary Super Ultra High Definition TV and a Samsung refrigerator with No Frost system, a Samsung induction stove, Samsung dishwashing machine, Samsung electrical oven, and maybe even a Samsung microwave oven. Not to forget the innovative Samsung AddWash washing machine.<p>I wonder why that is.
At first it seemed to me to be expensive for a little not really practical house to live in. Then I figured out this is a tech demo and PR stunt and not an attempt to make affordable housing for people to live in.<p>I wonder how this compare to a yurt or straw bale construction.
I'd be surprised if this house meets state regulations for residential construction in any US state.<p>That'll be one of the biggest obstacles to 3D printed housing in the US. Even if you somehow get efficiency gains through 3D printing, it's going to require a different configuration depending on the regulatory environment, which varies by nation and state and county and city and topography, and changes every year.<p>These regulations affect every detail of the construction of your house, from the foundation to the window panes. Even details as innocuous as sink depth are regulated.
This is really cool, but I'd love to know how durable a printed house is over the long term. Right now though, I think that there's a profitable niche for this sort of portable and low-labor-intensity construction in the defence and disaster-relief fields, where speed and cost are a higher priority than aesthetics.<p>I could easily see the US government (or rather, their contractors) using this technology when constructing bases overseas, especially in places in Afghanistan where workers don't just need to be paid, but fed, housed and transported at great expense.
I'm working on buying land some land and building a house right now. The prices for a typical traditional way of building a house aren't that astronomical. I looked into some prefab but for a split entry or two story it's pretty hard to bring my costs down much lower.<p>I wish I could get my land prepped and then print it out cheap or dropped off but haven't found anything that can get me to the price point I want with ~2500 sqft other than doing the typical way.
Oh wow, pretty neat and surprised it took just 24 hours. For some reason it reminds me a bit of the Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland. I wasn't even born yet when they took it down, but randomly found videos of it on YouTube once. But it was a whole house made of plastic. Probably molded I'd guess since they didn't have 3D printers back then.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qUkNZ5aJWE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qUkNZ5aJWE</a>
Carpenters roofers painters and plumbers are safe. This "printed house" seems to have required lots of hands. It is also so small that any reasonable team of humans could have built it in as short a time.<p>A better approach would be to have the robot print the concrete forms, allowing for humans to erect and fill them on the site. That might actually save on manpower.
"""The construction cost of the printed house amounted to $10134, which is approximately $275 per square meter, taking in account that partners have provided the highest quality materials"""<p>Due to the wording of the sentence I'm not sure if the material is included in the calculation or not. But assuming prices going down and technology improving a building like that for 10-20k in 24h is an interesting proposition for on demand housing (even if it is just destroyed afterwards).
Embedded sponsoring by Samsung aside I think the wall printed to match the curvature of the TV is an interesting example. This could be interesting for events/marketing booths etc.<p>Edit: This could also be very interesting for Hollywood for set building :)
Tiny houses are great and all, but most articles, tv shows, etc two basic issues:<p>- land
- hookups<p>Had this discussion today with someone enthused about a tiny home community until the land use rental fee came into play.
Anyone read the short science fiction (soon to be non-fiction) story Manna.<p>Is this the prototype of cheap "terrafoam" housing for the poor ppl displaced from the society? ;)
Awesome! Finally, Flintstone on HWY 280 will have some competition <a href="http://www.flintstonehouse280.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flintstonehouse280.com/</a><p>I can see artsy architects thinking up a whole new range of designs that escape the constraints imposed by established manufacturing and construction practices. Probably not as much not for permanent habitat, but for a garage, or a playhouse for kids.
Video of the process:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViqzfPW6TFo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViqzfPW6TFo</a>
Related: This House Costs Just $20,000—But It’s Nicer Than Yours [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.fastcoexist.com/3056129/this-house-costs-just-20000-but-its-nicer-than-yours" rel="nofollow">https://www.fastcoexist.com/3056129/this-house-costs-just-20...</a>
Given the fact that climate change is the big deal, how much <i>energy</i> did it take to actually build such a house versus the energy needed by a regular brick & mortar & human workers house ?
Print the walls and let this guy to do the rest
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Uoq6JYKbw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Uoq6JYKbw</a>
Other people have mentioned the high embodied energy of concrete but there is also a problem with insulating this structure. I hope the PIR wasn't just injected into the cavity because that is a recipe for disaster. The zigzag cross bracing you can see will be a massive cold bridge which will cause cold spots that will develop mould patches inside. Concrete is not breathable (it is mostly impermeable to water vapour) but hairline cracks develop which make it capillary active and will allow water to be wicked into the interstitial space containing the insulation and then through to the inner face to cause damp problems. A standard concrete wall needs to be a minimum of 300mm of solid concrete to remove the chance that a localised crack will form right through the wall. Usually when concrete is used it is purely for the floors and structural frame for this reason. You do see concrete clad structures but these are typically decorative panels with a capillary break behind, or they are damp and leaky old 60's buildings. Paint systems are not the solution as they tend to fail within 3 - 10 years and then they just trap even more moisture in the construction. Conventional houses get around this problem with a capillary break, basically just an air gap between the outer wall and the internal insulation which is on a block or in between timber structure. The alternative, which is well understood in central Europe, is to use breathable materials such as calcium silicate blocks and wood fibre insulation.<p>It looks like it forms a structure that only works in compression because of the way it is laid down. Even if it is glass reinforced concrete I don't think there could be a good structural interface between the printed layers. This is why it doesn't print the roof and they don't show how they dealt with the lintels over the doors and windows. These must have been installed manually. If the window openings had been 3d printed then they would have needed gothic arches to get around the 45 degree angle corbeling problem which is inherent in compression structures and the roof would have looked like a gothic vault for the same reason.<p>Another thing that is needed to make this into a dwelling that won't go mouldy, is some kind of vapour control layer on the inner concrete face. You then need to wire the place up, but there is the problem of how to hide the wires internally. You don't want electrical cables to go through the vapour control layer where possible and you definitely don't want any cable junctions where there is a risk of interstitial condensation making the electrics 'go fizzy'. Did they have to manually install dry lining over the cables? Are the internal faces rendered over conduit and then plastered?<p>I think their costs are suspicious as well, I don't know about Russia but in europe $227 would barely cover one day of time for 1 groundworks operative let alone machine hire and materials for foundations. A recent project we worked on had £20,000 installed cost just for the gravel fill for the groundworks for 2 small houses.<p>As an Architect, I think CNC machined cross laminated timber panels are more interesting because the embodied energy characteristics are much better and they are capable of forming diaphragm structures that experience tension such as floor and roof planes. In general flat vertical surfaces are not going away any time soon, because they are ABI compatible with Furniture v1.0.
What's the point of cheap housing if the landowning rentier class keeps extorting everybody through higher and higher rents?<p>The only way to get actually affordable housing is to tax land so hard that it stops being an investment at all and becomes merely a commodity, like it should be.
This isn't useful because the printed house lacks wiring, plumbing, and finishes and is also an example of wasteful land use. The occupant of this house will indirectly demand roads, power, water, and sewer systems and most likely parking for a car as well. If we accept that housing has become critical issue then we need to take it seriously and look at the whole problem and what aspects are the most costly. Currently planning, infrastructure impacts, and labor intensive details are where most of the money goes. Basic construction is already competitively cheap.