Group of Russian Machining and 3D Printing Companies Constructs 3D Printed Residential House

Using 3D printing technology in the construction sector has led to bridges, an office building and a laboratory in Dubai, a hotel and tiny houses, and even full-size homes and villages. In February, a group of European construction experts met in Copenhagen to discuss how 3D printing is changing construction, and came to the conclusion that Europe would become the leader in 3D printing construction over the next three to five years. Russia has also been in the 3D printing construction headlines for a house printed in just 24 hours, and a group of machining and 3D printing companies, called AMT-SPECAVIA, recently used a 3D printer to construct a residential house in Yaroslavl.

The 3D printed house was presented this week, and will soon be the permanent home of a Russian family. Specialists with AMT-SPECAVIA, which includes Skolkovo LLC near Moscow, have been printing parts of the house over the last two years, and recently put them all together to build the 298.5 square-meter building, known as the Yaroslavl AMT project.

General Director of AMT-SPECAVIA Alexander Maslov and Yuri Khakhanov with the Skolkovo Foundation.

“It was important for us to create a precedent, to show in practice that 3D construction technology is working. At that time, printing houses – it was something from the realm of fantasy. We set the task to make it real,” said Alexander Maslov, general director of the AMT-SPECAVIA group of companies in a translated quote. “Printing was done in the shop on the smallest printer. Printed the building in parts (the walls of the house, decorative elements, the tower), were taken to the construction site and assembled on site as a designer. Since then, of course, the equipment has been improved: the speed of printing has increased, the quality has improved. But even our first model proved to be a reliable and efficient equipment. The status of the Skolkovo participant allows us to accelerate development and access to foreign markets.”

Maxim Avdeev, the Deputy Governor of the Yaroslavl Region, attended the presentation of the 3D printed house.

The AMT-SPECAVIA companies first created a 3D model of the house on the computer, before dividing the model by cross sections in layers. Not only did the collaborative group of companies 3D print the house, partner SPECAVIA also created the 3D printing equipment that handled the job. A 3D portal printer, with a build volume of 3.5 x 3.6 x 1 meters, was used to build the residential building, using standard M-300 concrete sand.

The layers of the house were printed at 10 mm high and 30 to 50 mm wide, and the walls were printed at up to 15 square meters an hour. One of the great benefits of 3D printed houses is the ability to use complex geometry to create features like arches and cylindrical structures. In addition, the time from design to production is reduced up to 8-12 times; obviously, the high rate of speed at which the house was built is also a plus.

Oleg Pertsovsky, the director of operations for the Skolkovo Energy Efficient Technologies cluster, said in a translated quote, “Today, Russian developers are among the world leaders in 3D printing. In the Fund, AMT LLC is developing and commercializing a line of portal building printers: from small format (for printing small architectural forms) to large (capable of printing houses up to 3 floors high). Today “AMT” presented an impressive result of its innovative activity – a full-length residential building built for permanent residence. “Skolkovo” purposefully involves projects on construction 3D-printing. Support from Skolkovo will allow companies to get an additional impetus to development not only on the Russian market, but also on the world market.”

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The 3D printed Yaroslavl house is consistent with all of the rules and regulations of individual housing construction in Russia, including getting a building permit and a technical passport from the Bureau of Technical Inventory (BTI), which is necessary when it comes to performing registration actions. Soon, the 3D printed residential home will also be placed on the cadastral survey, a comprehensive register of a specific country’s real estate.

You can take a look at some drone footage of the 3D printed house in the video below:

Not that long ago, the idea that we might all one day live in 3D printed homes probably seemed like a joke, or something out of a cheesy sci-fi movie. But as we see more and more 3D printing innovations come out of the construction field, it doesn’t seem quite so funny anymore. What’s more, as is the case with the Yaroslavl house, these buildings aren’t gimmicks or ad campaigns, but real homes where people will actually live. So it seems like we may need to get used to the idea that 3D printed homes are here to stay.

What do you think of this house? Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below. 

[Sources: Sputnik News, Sk News / Images: SPECAVIA]