Construction is underway in Houston on the first multistory 3D printed building in the United States. Designed by two assistant professors of architecture at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), the two-story, single-family home merges 3D printed concrete with a traditional timber frame, creating what designers Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic believe is a precedent for future 3D printed multifamily and mixed-use developments.
When completed, the 4,000-square-foot home will contain three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a two-car garage, while a 40-foot-high chimney will make the home one of the tallest 3D printed structures in the U.S.
The project is the latest by Lok and Zivkovic to investigate applications of 3D printing in architecture. The professors, who are also co-principals of HANNAH Design Office, have previously experimented with a hybrid system of 3D-printed concrete and up-cycled wood for a cabin in New York, and an installation at Cornell, whose development merged alternative building materials with digital modeling.
For their Houston home, Lok and Zivkovic have connected 3D printed concrete structural elements with conventional wood framing, insulated by spray-foam insulation. The team believes that the combination can demonstrate how hybrid systems can be optimized according to their design potential with minimal waste.
"Our hybrid construction approach creates a building system that is structurally efficient, easily replicable and materially responsive," Lok said. "The project also highlights the exciting design potential of mass-customized architectural components to meet homeowners’ needs and to simplify building system integration."
The team notes that 3D printed materials in the home are locally sourced using cement with a reduced carbon footprint, while its construction will inform research at Cornell’s College of Engineering into ecofriendly building materials, including concrete that can store methane.
"Apart from printing technology, the integration of printing with building design and building materials, and the streamlining of construction process are important aspects in the realization of such a project," Zivkovic said. "We are using this project to demonstrate how 3D printing is not only market-ready, but also capable of building well-designed and high-performance architecture."
The home is currently being constructed by PERI 3D Construction, with the support of a large printer gantry measuring 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet tall.
News of the scheme comes one week after an IAAC team in Catalonia 3D printed a zero-waste housing prototype using local earth. Future 3D-printed projects in the U.S. may also be facilitated by a changing regulatory environment, with Montana recently becoming the first U.S. state to approve 3D printed alternatives to concrete walls.
You can learn more about the application of 3D printing in architecture by exploring our ongoing news coverage of the topic or through our 2021 feature article, which charted the design and construction of a 3D printed home in Arizona.
9 Comments
So it is a hybrid structure right? I was wondering if the technology to print wide span horizontal structures was already mature enough. From the article, it seems the structural frame is timber and the vertical walls are 3D Printed.
It’s cool, but the benefit of 3-D printing structures is what?
Nothing except to maintain the fiction that the latest technology has fundamentally changed architecture.
when all the blue collar and middle class jobs are automated away the consumers will need to be propped up by the state. That’s when the new order will take root. The super profitable corporations pay taxes- the taxes go to the government- government recirculates to the consumers - the consumers recirculate that capital to the corporations. I think this needs a term…how about “Closed loop Corporate
Socialism?”
At that point, the state and corporations are essentially one. A strange a
This is the direction that we are headed.
*a strange amalgamation of fascism and socialism. The dream team for dictators and oligarchs alike.
Not sure what is socialist about this, seems more like neo-fascist capitalism.
perhaps a more appropriate use for 3D printed structures would be a hyprid borderwall / prison.
“Fascism is Socialism with the veneer of capitalism”
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