A few years ago, the very real structures you see here would have been impossible.
That’s because they were built with 3D printing - a process that has transformed all kinds
of industries from manufacturing to medicine, and that’s now seriously moving up a gear
in an effort to crack construction.
With rising demand for buildings and a shrinking construction workforce, firms around the world
are in an increasingly desperate race to scale the technology,
prove its worth and 3D-print our world.
But the challenges to making it mainstream are huge and unless these pioneers
can solve them once-and-for-all then 3D-printed buildings might end-up being a fad.
We need more buildings than ever before - especially houses.
We also need them quickly, more efficiently and built to a
higher standard than we have at the moment.
At the same time, fewer people are choosing to come into construction and there are nowhere
near enough skilled workers to get all this done.
That’s where 3D-printing comes in. For years, tech-firms, start-ups and governments have
seen it as a possible answer to the problem and have signed-off billions to scale the
technology - but that’s the point where things get tricky.
Get beyond that excellent idea spark of “mass-printing high-quality buildings with automated machines
and making loads of money” to the next step and you realise why this isn’t how buildings
are commonly built around the world.
And that’s the part that so many teams - from California to Dubai - are currently racing
to crack, because if you solve that then you probably will be rich.
To help you understand the challenge, let’s get back to basics for a moment.
3D printing - or additive manufacturing as it is also known - is a way of building three-dimensional
objects from material that is gradually added layer-by-layer.
You typically design a digital model of what you want on some software and the machine
then prints from that.
Now, these machines - or printers - can vary massively in size and life is easy for those
industries printing small things. But, as you’ve probably guessed, construction is
a whole different league.
Our machines need to be huge, though they flex a bit depending on what you’re printing
- it might be foundations, walls, individual building blocks or even an entire structure.
It’s faster. You do get better precision and accuracy, and because the amount of material
used and the way it’s mixed together can be calculated beforehand,
waste can be pretty much eliminated.
You can integrate door and window frames but depending on the design and wall make-up you’ll
often need to pre-determine where plug sockets and switches will all be - these usually get
moved around a bit during construction on traditional jobs.
Printers can also move in multiple directions and create curves easily, which has opened
up new possibilities for design - but so far that’s not really been enough to appeal
to the mass market and nearly all 3D-printed projects are running into the same problem:
they look 3D-printed.
This is Project Milestone in the Netherlands where five 3D-printed houses are initially
being built in the city of Eindhoven. They’re formed with 24 concrete pieces made in a printing
plant which are then pieced together on site and residents recently moved into the first
completed home.
The problem is that, despite the futuristic renders and attempt to sell this as a new
architectural style, it looks very different to what most of us are used to.
It’s the same story with this scheme in Germany which recently became the first 3D
printed home in the world to get fully certified under a national government’s building regulations.
And you can see that it comes up again when we 3D-print concrete bridges.
We live in a world where many of us aspire to have the same make of car or smartphone
that others have - but, when it comes to buildings and our homes,
we want bespoke architecture and character.
The trick with mass-produced buildings is to get the economies of scale, speed and quality
that comes with standardised production, while offering the ability to
adapt and customise at certain points.
Elsewhere in the world of offsite manufacturing we’ve seen buildings starting to become
standardised at a component level - they look unique but are built from the same
mass-produced kit-of-parts.
That concept also extends well to bigger sections of a building like wall or window panels,
but go too far or try to standardise too much and you run into problems.
Every construction site in the world is different and every architect has a different view of
what could be built there. You need some adaptability and versatility to overcome those hurdles
while still getting the benefits of mass-production.
3D-printing doesn't seem to have cracked that yet, but some teams are now seriously trying.
California-based Mighty Buildings is planning the world’s first community of 3D-printed
net-zero energy homes near Palm Springs and they’ve managed to make the renders look
like 3D-printing but with appeal - though that might just be me as a British guy getting
sucked-in by the palm trees and good weather.
Of course, for people affected by poverty and homelessness, architecture is less urgent.
US firm ICON has 3D-printed homes for the homeless and people living in extreme poverty
in Mexico and in doing so proven the benefits of being able to build quickly with the technology.
They’ve also somewhat broken the mould with these eye-catching multi-storey homes.
Most 3D-printed houses so far have been single-storey, but ICON has adopted a hybrid approach, where
the ground floor was made using additive manufacturing
and the upper floors with more traditional means.
It shows that combining 3D-printing with older methods could be one way to make the technology
more widespread while it is still maturing, but it’s also evidence of how larger multi-storey
structures remain really difficult.
That’s not to say they’re not doable. China completed a five-storey apartment block
using the technology in 2015 and the world’s largest 3D-printed building was constructed
for the Dubai Municipality in 2019 - but those examples almost make the point even more powerfully.
Think insane rates of construction and China and Dubai both jump to mind - but they’re
not 3D-printing en masse. Dubai claims to want to 3D-print 25% of its new buildings
by 2030 but right now it’s not happening, because the nut hasn’t been cracked.
You’ll find that sustainability is also an issue, particularly as 3D-printing often
involves concrete; a carbon-intensive material.
However, the process requires it to be mixed differently to regular concrete and many firms
are experimenting with different formulas that aren’t quite so damaging to the environment.
And of course it doesn’t have to be concrete. These unique bulb-shaped homes in Ravenna,
Italy were 3D-printed from a special kind of clay. It’s a natural material gathered
from the local area and has self-insulating properties.
The example is undeniably sustainable and energy efficient but again we’re back to
people having to embrace living in a burrow.
The challenges around cost still remain too. While 3D-printing buildings is predicted to
become cheaper in the future, the equipment itself is pretty pricey.
Then you have to get all this kit to one of those unique and highly variable construction sites.
You have set it up, maintain it and hire or train people to operate it.
Even for construction companies that tackle all this, there’s no special exemption on
the building regulations for 3D-printing. You still need to hit all the requirements.
Right now, the journey of 3D-printing towards becoming a widely used method of construction seems
to be at a fork in the road. It could seriously take-off
or it might just end-up finding very limited uses.
The technology is advancing fast, the positives are numerous and in a short space of time
we’ve gone from mere concepts and showcase projects to fully usable buildings and structures
- and there’s little doubt more case studies will follow.
Space architects and teams at NASA are even considering using it to build with on other
planets, where the need for conventional architecture isn’t quite so pressing.
Back on Earth the challenges are big and will take more than
simply money or convincing renders to solve.
The winner of this race will need to 3D-print in a sustainable, cost-effective way that
results in buildings people actually want to live their lives in.
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