Prefabrication experiments - 91 - 3d Printed Buildings

Prefabrication theory has always intended to unite building methods with innovative manufacturing processes.  3d printing is highlighting a new type of manufacturing revolution and defying traditional building modus. Concrete construction in particular is being utilized to examine the potential of uniting this proven material with a relatively new technology. Building with concrete is comparable to 3d printing's additive manufacturing process. Generally a mixture of cement, water, sand and aggregate are mixed to a uniform paste and poured into moulds where hydration hardens the paste to a solid artificial stone-like material. 

Concrete and steel reinforced concrete was unambiguously synonymous with modern building methods as the technique was dependent on the industrialization of both cement and steel production. Concrete’s state change from liquid to solid provoked many experiments by which the material’s malleability was combined with active formwork to improve quality, speed, overall construction efficiency and patterning possibilities.

Thomas Edison’s continuously poured house, the Tournalayer machine for producing houses and the invention of slip forms exemplify a number of processes for simultaneously pouring and shaping concrete. Specifically in the case of Edison’s concrete houses, the two to three story moulds generated complete structures in a single cast. Most innovative and optimistic approaches to concrete construction were founded on a site-mechanization paradigm that still highlights heavy-duty concrete construction today.

Based on open-source innovation, 3d printing technologies are being explored along with concrete production to produce complete complex buildings or large fragments at a fraction of the time or cost that would be necessary with conventional tools. Foster and Partners, a large engineering firm has been researching 3d printed concrete with Skanska an innovative contractor looking to showcase the technology's potential.

The additive process is taken even further by an organisation known as WASP (World’s advanced Saving Project) who has been developing and researching with giant 3d printers such as their Big Delta; The 40 ft. tall printer uses a robotic arm equipped with a mechanical mixer, which combines material into a paste and extrudes it through a nozzle. The nozzle deposits layer upon layer of material in a precisely digitally controlled pattern, extruding shapes as the layers build-up. As 3d printing technology is brought to mainstream building, Edison’s dream of a one-cast concrete house seems almost conventional.

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