Imagine this scenario, “You want to have a house for yourself. Instead of going to a construction company, you sit in front of the computer, design the house by yourself, buy a large delta printer and construction materials online and just print the house. The printing will be over in a day and you can move into the house the same day.”. Doesn’t it sound futuristic, something lifted from fantasy movie. Till recent past it is, but not any longer. If we go by China’s latest creation, it is very much possible to have homes sprayed out of printer nozzles.
A Chinese construction company, Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co pioneered this technology by building (sorry, by printing) 10 houses in a single day. Now the same company took this to the next level by constructing a villa and 5 floor building in an industrial park in Jiangsu China.
The villa is 1,100 square meters and had windows, balconies and metal hand rails. All the walls are 3D printed whereas the windows, hand rails are all fixed later. These homes were printed using a printer which is 21 ft tall, 32 ft wide and 500 ft long. The ink used in the printer is a mixture of recycled construction waste, glass, steel and cement which is sprayed on layer by layer until a thick wall is created. The company printed these to exhibit the capabilities of 3D printing technology. The company didn’t reveal the plans to produce these on a commercial scale.
