What Europe’s first fully 3D printed house looks like

Europe’s first 3% XNUMXD printed home welcomes its new occupants, a couple from Amsterdam

What’s going on

• At the beginning of May 2021, the fourth in the world and the first in the EU fully 3D printed residential building welcomed its residents. This is the first of five houses that Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix plans to build as part of the Milestone project on a plot of land near the Beatrix Canal, in the suburbs of Eindhoven.
• 3D printing technology has already been used in Europe for the construction of individual building structures, but in the Netherlands they built the first residential building completely printed on a 3D printer.
• The first tenants of the house were a married couple from Amsterdam – 70-year-old Eliza Lutz and 67-year-old Harry Dekkers.
• House of 94 sq. m is designed in the form of an irregular boulder and consists of 24 individual concrete elements printed at the factory in Eindhoven, which were brought to the construction site and installed on the foundation. Then the window frames were installed in the house, the roof was laid and the finishing touches were applied.
• For printing, a huge robotic “arm” was used with a nozzle that injects a specially designed cement that has the texture of whipped cream. The cement is printed according to the architect’s design, adding layer after layer to create a wall and increase its strength. The entire printing process took 120 hours or five days.
• The shape of the irregular boulder was chosen for a reason – so the builders wanted to complicate the task and test the capabilities of the 3D printer. The check was successful – now the company is ready to print complex-shaped houses at the request of the client.
• The monthly rent of the house is €800 (slightly more than ₽70), which is half the market rent for a similar property.

What does it mean

The creation of the first fully 3D printed house in the Netherlands is just the beginning of a new phase in the industry. Residential buildings built using 3D printing technology have a number of significant advantages over “classic” buildings. Firstly, the speed of the project, the first house was printed in five days, but in the future the company plans to produce concrete elements on site, as well as use a 3D printer to create auxiliary installations, which will reduce construction time and costs.

In addition, in an era of global concern about the state of the environment, such “green” technologies help reduce environmental damage to the environment – with 3D printing, the consumption of cement and waste of building materials is much less than with “traditional” construction.

Finally, with the help of a 3D printer, almost any design idea can be realized, which will allow moving away from the concept of residential buildings in the form of “concrete boxes”. The development of this technology makes it possible to erect buildings of such forms that are difficult and expensive to build using traditional methods.

The technology of printing houses on a 3D printer is actively developing in our country, France, the USA and other countries. It is assumed that this will help solve the problem of providing citizens with affordable and decent housing.