One-Bedroom House Showcases the Benefits of 3D Printing

[Image: CLS Architects]

Next month, from April 17th to 22nd, Milan, Italy will be hosting its Design Week, Salone del Mobile, a massive trade show aimed at designers of all things for the home, inside and out. The trade show is in its 56th year and has attracted nearly 350,000 attendees. Those attendees will be seeing a lot this year, including one thing never seen at the show before – a 3D printed house.

The one-bedroom house, called the “3D Housing 05 Technology Meets Humanity” was designed by Arup and CLS Architects, and is currently being 3D printed on site in Milan’s central square, Piazza Cesare Beccaria, by a robot from CyBe Construction, the firm behind Dubai’s 3D printed R&Drone Laboratory. Once the walls are 3D printed, the doors, windows and roof will be fitted. Italcementi is advising on the base mix for the concrete being used.

The one-story house has a living area, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen and covers an area of 100 square meters. Architect Massimiliano Locatelli of CLS Architects said that the house will showcase 3D printing’s ability to create unconventional geometries.

“My vision was to integrate new, more organic shapes in the surrounding landscapes or urban architecture,” he said in a recent interview with Wallpaper. “…I wanted to show a different way of using a printing machine and explore how a concrete house could create a dialogue with our memories of interior design, made of references to archetypes of the past.”

L to R: Guglielmo Carra (Arup), Cristina Tajani (Comune di Milano), Massimiliano Locatelli (CLS Architetti), Luca Stabile (Arup), Massimo Borsa (Italcementi) [Image: Arup]

The house will also demonstrate the sustainability that 3D printing offers, creating less waste than traditional building processes and allowing for the use of recycled concrete. The construction industry is notoriously wasteful, its “make, use, dispose” model accounting for 60 percent of all raw materials used in the UK alone. Arup is consulting on materials and structural engineering, sharing its expertise on waste reduction. The company’s Circular Building was constructed entirely of reusable components, making a minimal impact on the environment.

[Image: CLS Architects]
“The construction industry is one of the world’s biggest users of resources and emitters of CO2,” said Guglielmo Carra, Europe Materials Consulting Lead at Arup. “We want to bring a paradigm shift in the way the construction industry operates and believe that 3D printing technology is critical to making buildings more sustainable and efficient. It creates less waste during construction and materials can be repurposed and reused at the end of their life.”

3D printed houses have gone from being mere showcases to be actual functional, livable homes; another 3D printed house in Europe will shortly be welcoming its first residents. While 3D printed construction might still have a few skeptics, they should be growing fewer and fewer as people actually begin moving into these 3D printed buildings. The benefits of 3D printed construction – sustainability, design flexibility, cost savings, speed – have made themselves clear in one example after another, and now these houses are proving themselves to be livable in addition to all of their other benefits.

“3D printing will contribute to breaking the conventional barriers in engineering and architecture,” said Luca Stabile, Italy Building Practice Leader at Arup. “The use of new technologies alongside a new digital approach to the built environment will be instrumental to creating even more complex multi-storey 3D printed buildings.”