A French family is the first in the world to live in a house that is 3-D printed – this four-bedroom house is a prototype for larger projects aimed at making house construction faster and cheaper, reports BBC.
The house features rounded walls to reduce moisture effects, digital controls for people with disabilities, and was printed in 54 hours, while it took an additional four months for contractors to add windows, doors, and a roof. The house cost around £176,000 (approximately 1.47 million kuna), which is about 20 percent less than what it would cost to build an identical structure using traditional solutions.
The house is 92 square meters in size, built in Nantes for a family of five, has four bedrooms and a large central space, and the team that created it believes they could print the next such house even faster – in 33 hours.
The project leader from the Nantes administration, Francky Trichet, says the goal was to see if this type of construction could become common for building houses and whether these principles could be applied to other public buildings such as sports halls.
The house was built in the poorer northern part of Nantes, and the city chose to have the family of Nordine and Nouria Ramdani, along with their three children, move in. The family moved in on June 29, as reported by Ouest France.
The house was designed by a team of architects and scientists who then programmed it into a 3-D printer. This printer was then brought to the house location. The printer works by printing layers from the ground up, with each wall consisting of two layers of insulation, while the space in between is filled with concrete. This creates a hard, insulated, durable wall.
Once the house was built, or rather 3-D printed, windows, doors, and a roof were installed.
The idea for this house was conceived by Benoit Furet, the project leader from the University of Nantes. He believes that in five years, the costs of building such houses will be reduced by 25 percent while adhering to building regulations, and in 10 to 15 years, he expects this type of construction to become 40 percent cheaper. Here is the project website.
In addition to being cheaper, this type of construction will allow architects far greater creativity regarding house shapes – this house was built to avoid protected, 100-year-old trees on the property.
Furet hopes to build entire suburbs based on these same principles in the future, and he is currently working on a project to 3-D print 18 houses in northern Paris. He is also working on a large commercial building that would have 700 square meters.
