PHOTOS: THIS GROUNDBREAKING 3D PRINTER BUILT 10 HOMES IN 24 HOURS



From Oreos to body parts, 3D printers have been cranking out some pretty unbelievable stuff lately.

But in Shanghai, WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co. has been using a monstrous printing device to build homes at a breakneck pace — 10 homes in 24 hours.

Measuring out at roughly 105 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 21 feet tall, this clearly isn’t your average retail printer.



Unlike most 3D printers, this printing giant is fed with cement rather than plastic, making it especially well-suited for home construction.

The best part is the houses are super cheap to make and they’re made almost entirely of construction and other industrial waste.



When it’s all said and done, the houses are roughly 650 square feet and cost only $4,800 to make, which is why they’re being considered as a housing solution for China’s poor.

It’s not the first krack at 3D home building, but it is definitely the fastest, most economical, and environmentally friendly way we’ve seen to date.


http://www.ryot.org/3d-printer-home-...anghait/641445

How a Chinese Company Built 10 Homes in 24 Hours
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A house is constructed using a 3-D printing process. See more photos of the 3-D homes being constructed. Winsun New Materials
Chinese companies have been known to build major real-estate projects very quickly. Now, one company is taking it to a new extreme.

Suzhou-based construction-materials firm Winsun New Materials says it has built 10 200-square-meter homes using a gigantic 3-D printer that it spent 20 million yuan ($3.2 million) and 12 years developing.

Such 3-D printers have been around for several years and are commonly used to make models, prototypes, plane parts and even such small items as jewelry. The printing involves an additive process, where successive layers of material are stacked on top of one another to create a finished product.

Winsun’s 3-D printer is 6.6 meters (22 feet) tall, 10 meters wide and 150 meters long, the firm said, and the “ink” it uses is created from a combination of cement and glass fibers. In a nod to China’s green agenda, Winsun said in the future it plans to use scrap material left over from construction and mining sites to make its 3-D buildings.

Winsun says it estimates the cost of printing these homes is about half that of building them the traditional way. And although the technology seems efficient, it’s unlikely to be widely used to build homes any time soon because of regulatory hurdles, Mr. Chen said.

The Chinese firm isn’t the first to experiment with printing homes. Architects in Amsterdam are building a house with 13 rooms, with plans to print even the furniture. The Dutch architect in charge of the project said on the project’s website it would probably take less than three years to complete.
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2...s-in-24-hours/