Much of the discussion around 3D printing has focused on making your own coffee cups, toys and small mechanical parts, but what if we start thinking about using these devices to build houses?
University of Southern California spin off Contour Crafting received attention at the CES over the bold claim by the program’s director, Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, that it will be soon possible to build a house in 24 hours.
That’s an audacious claim although it doesn’t include site works or fitting out, much less the design of the structure.
Contour Crafting isn’t the only university spin off experimenting with 3D printing to build structures; Freeform Construction, part of the UK’s University of Loughborough, has also been working on developing the technology.
The British team haven’t been as audacious as their US colleagues and, rather than see whole buildings being constructed, they see potential applications being in fabricating specialised parts including cladding panels and complex structural components.
Like all robotic applications working in hazardous environments is another aspect touted for the technology.
The British team is almost certainly right in their view, 3D printing is unlikely to fabricate entire buildings onsite but it will have applications in the building industry which will have ramifications for tradesmen, architects and project managers.
For architects this technology could prove to liberating as it gives designers the opportunity to create structures that haven’t been feasible or possible with existing materials and techniques.
Some trades though may not fare so well should this technology appear on building sites, it certainly doesn’t look like good news for bricklayers and form workers.
It will probably take sometime for this technology and it’s still very much under development, Contour Crafting itself won awards in 2006 and the machines are still under development.
Bill Gates famously pointed out that in the short term we over-estimate the effects of technology while in the long term we underestimate them and that’s almost certainly the case with using 3D printing to build structures.
The last quote isn’t quite right. Quoted here is Amara’s Law. Gates said in 1997: “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10.”
When I spoke to Gates soon afterwards, he said, “We tend to overestimate the speed of change and underestimate its effect.”