A family in France has become the first in the world to move into a 3D-printed house. The four-bedroom property is a prototype for bigger projects aiming to make housebuilding quicker and cheaper. With curved walls designed to reduce the effects of humidity and digital controls for people with disabilities, this house could be the future of house-building.
It took 54 hours to print (which they think can be reduced to 33), 4 months for contractors to add windows, doors and the roof, it cost around £176,000 to build making it 20% cheaper than an identical construction using more traditional methods. It’s floorspace is 95m (1022ft) square and it has been built for a family of five with four bedrooms and a big central space.
The house was designed in a studio by a team of scientists and architects and then programmed into a 3D printer which was then brought to the site of the house.
It prints in layers from the floor upwards and each wall consists of two layers of the insulator polyurethane, with the space in-between filled with cement creating an insulated, thick, durable wall. After this, the windows, doors, and roof are all fitted – and there it is.
Inevitably, printing will enable architects to be far more creative with the shapes of the houses they are designing and build in disability-helping features. This particular house was built to curve around the 100-year-old protected trees on the plot and the curve also improves the air circulation, reducing potential humidity and improving thermal resistance.
Disability-friendly features include with wheelchair access and the ability for everything to be controlled from a smartphone. It’s also more environmentally-friendly than traditional construction, as there is no waste.
Here comes the future.
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