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| Building the first two-story home takes 3D printing to new heights |
Three American companies have teamed up to build the world's first 3D-printed two-story building measuring 370 square metres.
The printer giant, weighing more than 12 tons, extruded layers of concrete for this unusual house in the US state of Houston.
Architect Leslie Locke, co-founder of Hannah Design Studio and designer of the home, was quoted by Reuters as saying that construction took a total of 330 hours to print.
"You can actually find a lot of 3D printed buildings in a lot of states," Locke said. She added, “One of the problems with second-floor printing is that you need machines… Of course there are other challenges with double-floor printing, for example: structural challenges, logistical challenges.
About halfway through work on a three-bedroom frame house, Luke said, it was sold to an unnamed family.
In particular, the project is the result of a collaboration between three companies that began two years ago: (Hannah), (Perry 3D Construction) and the civil engineering office (Cive).
Hikmet Zreib, Cive's Head of Structural Design, hopes that one day this innovative technology will help build residential buildings faster and cheaper.
In addition, the concrete can withstand hurricanes, severe storms, and other extreme weather events that are becoming increasingly frequent and severe in Texas due to climate change.
Construction sites don't need many workers because printers do all the heavy lifting.
Zarb said, "In traditional architecture, you know the rules, you know the game, you know the properties of matter, the behavior of matter." But everything is new here, the materials are new, and while concrete is often an old material, 3D printed concrete is something new. "