BBC News, Colin
Grant, 15 April 2013
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| The architects intend to use the house as an education centre to help promote 3D printing |
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Stories
It sounds
like the ultimate do-it-yourself project: the print-your-own-home.
In place of
bricks and mortar and the need for a construction crew, a customisable building
plan which transforms itself from computer screen graphics into a real-world
abode thanks to the latest in 3D printing technology.
That dream
is still beyond our reach, but several teams of architects across the globe are
engaged in efforts to take a major step towards it by creating the world's
first 3D-printed homes.
Amsterdam-based
Dus Architects is one of the firms involved - it plans to print a canal house
in the Dutch capital.
It's worth
taking a moment to reflect on that premise; the machine will not modestly
3D-print the usual cup, curtain ring or piece of jewellery, but an actual
building.
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| Objects are created by printing thin layers of the construction materials on top of each other |
With a
shiny metallic exterior, built from the carcass of a shipping container, it is
6m (19ft 8in) tall and would easily fill the average sitting room.
Using
different types of plastics and wood fibres, the device takes computer-drawn
plans and uses them to make first the building's exterior walls, then the
ceilings and other parts of individual rooms and then finally its furniture.
The pieces
will be assembled on site like a huge jigsaw with parts attached to each other
thanks to some of their edges having being shaped like giant Lego pieces, and
the use of steel cabling to "sew" the elements together.
Each part
is created using a layer-by-layer process in which solid objects take shape by
printing thin "slices" of the construction materials, one level at a
time, which bind together.
When I
interviewed the architects involved - Hedwig Heinsman and Hans Vermeulen - for
the BBC World Service's Click - I was able to stand comfortably with them
inside the machine.
Looking
across I could see the device's huge print head was connected to a flexible
tube running down from the ceiling through which it could pour the heated
plasticised material that will ultimately form the house's structure.
As with its
smaller counterparts, the print head moves firstly horizontally and then
vertically building up salami slices of the 3D object.
The
enormous contraption will be able to fabricate individual life-sized rooms in
one print session.
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| One of the house's window frames was among the first parts to be printed |
The young
architects were visibly excited. Architecture is normally a slow and
painstaking discipline. After graduation their first conventional building,
from commission to execution, was six years in the making. This 3D project
should be concluded in a fraction of that time.
By the end
of this year the fully printed facade of the building will be erected, though
it will be several more years before the project is completed.
"We
are makers at heart and a 3D printer offers us a DIY kit," says Ms
Heinsman.
Mr
Vermeulen adds he believes his industry is "at the forefront of new
industrial revolution".
Their firm
has formed a collective that includes designers and computer scientists who are
sharing their expertise and drawing on open-source computer tools to build this
canal house.
The 3D
printer stands like a work of modern sculpture on a grassy patch outside the
collective's slightly raffish offices.
It's not
just that it would it be too big to fit inside their offices, the team wants
the public to be able to see the virtuosity of this 3D printer in action.
They also
have a more regular-sized 3D printer inside their offices which is used to
build doll's house-sized architectural models of the canal house on a scale of
1:20. Critically, the instructions for building these small versions are from
the same computer files that the architects have designed for the actual house.
The canal
house will be built over time from the bottom up.
Ms Heinsman
says you might notice a change in the aesthetic of the building as your eyes
travel up it.
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| 1:20 scale models were built from the computer blueprints to help optimise the design |
It is
unlikely that the finished KamerMaker 3D-printed house will be built as cheaply
as conventional canal houses which are mass-produced by developers. But the
architects are treating it as an experiment which provides a proof of concept
and proof of the unbound limits of 3D printing.
It may seem
like science fiction or the kind of fantastical vanity project expected of a
millionaire, but this is really a visionary concept of idealistic but
level-headed architects operating with modest budgets, whose focus is on social
housing.
Developers
may not be quaking in their boots just now but 3D printing has the potential to
disrupt construction and the very look of our towns and cities.
Related Articles:
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| A handout computer generated image shows a house designed by Dutch architecture practice Universe Architecture on January 14, 2013. |
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