3D PRINTED BUILDINGS

                    Design and construction of buildings with 3D printers.(part I)

In the beginning, designing of the buildings was based on empirical knowledge about the materials, designing and construction processes. After the industrial revolution, there was a big change in the way the world thinks about the quality of the materials and the way we design buildings based on proven techniques and standards. For example concrete should be produced based on policies and instructions of numerous organizations from each country. But one more revolution is just around the corner. Based on digital technologies, we are now starting to experiment with what we call additive manufacturing. This technique allows us to merge craft and industry. In Italy, robotics engineer Enrico Dini has been experimenting with a large scale 3D printer. In collaboration with architectural firms he is trying to construct small structures from scratch. The 3D printer is located in a warehouse near Pisa, Italy. The materials that he uses are sand and magesium oxide and by mixing them with chlorine it produced a chemical reaction of synthetic sand stone. So by adding layers of this product he creates the main structure of the building. First, Dini produced the whole structure at once but he realized it was better to create separate parts and then assemble them together. But with the existing technology the resistance of the materials is limited. So Dini came up with a solution. He used two 3D printers working side by side inside a temporary structure. After creating the hollow parts then filled them with reinforced concrete in order to augment their ability to resist different kind of loads.

Right now we are just in the beginning of this fascination application of 3D printers. But stay tuned as we explore new techniques of designing and constructing buildings.