Live data from Hacker News

A house 3D printed from raw earth

itsnicethat.com

11–20 of 261 posts

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#11
post #4

In all of these demos, they never show you the resulting bathroom, shower, or kitchen. It's always "here's a shell we made". I'd like to see the finished house, with fixtures in place and working.

While am generally a 3d printing skeptic I feel it's not quite a fair take. The bulk of a house (and its major cost component) is the structure. So this could be useful even if it can't print you the bathroom and the fridge. How well it going to work in practice is another matter (and here's where am skeptical).

The bulk of a house (and its major cost component) is the structure

Using current pre-fab techniques a half dozen builders can raise the core structure of a single family house in a few days. A friend of mine is in the process of building a house and raising the core structure was the fastest and easiest part of the whole process. I don't see this being either cheaper or faster.

The bulk of the cost in many cases is things independent of the actual house, like purchasing the land, doing the ground work and the foundations and pulling in water and sewage.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#13
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While am generally a 3d printing skeptic I feel it's not quite a fair take. The bulk of a house (and its major cost component) is the structure. So this could be useful even if it can't print you the bathroom and the fridge. How well it going to work in practice is another matter (and here's where am skeptical).

The structure also has to accommodate those features. They’re not wholly independent.

With pex plumbing and high velocity HVAC, you only need to run small, flexible tubes through the framing. It should be relatively easy to print small, flexible holes for tubing. Agree that traditional ductwork and copper pipping would be hard to accommodate.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#14
post #4

In all of these demos, they never show you the resulting bathroom, shower, or kitchen. It's always "here's a shell we made". I'd like to see the finished house, with fixtures in place and working.

While am generally a 3d printing skeptic I feel it's not quite a fair take. The bulk of a house (and its major cost component) is the structure. So this could be useful even if it can't print you the bathroom and the fridge. How well it going to work in practice is another matter (and here's where am skeptical).

Absolutely not true. This is often referred to as the 'envelope' in construction and its not the majority of the cost of overall construction (or wasnt before the current outrageous lumber prices)

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#15

In all of these demos, they never show you the resulting bathroom, shower, or kitchen. It's always "here's a shell we made". I'd like to see the finished house, with fixtures in place and working.

Not sure that fitting a bathroom or kitchen is the difficult part of the concept, though.

It reminds me a little of an old Grand Designs episode. [0] Different, in that (AFAICT) the 3D-printed house isn't designed to have high thermal mass (the 'earthship' concept) but it gives an idea how a fully-functional house can be crafted from a lot of earth and work quite well.

[0] https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/97...

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The structure also has to accommodate those features. They’re not wholly independent.

With pex plumbing and high velocity HVAC, you only need to run small, flexible tubes through the framing. It should be relatively easy to print small, flexible holes for tubing. Agree that traditional ductwork and copper pipping would be hard to accommodate.

Drainage is the hard part. The pipes are larger and require you to cooperate with gravity.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#18

In all of these demos, they never show you the resulting bathroom, shower, or kitchen. It's always "here's a shell we made". I'd like to see the finished house, with fixtures in place and working.

Modern bathroom pods are very easy to install and come in pre-configured sizes. They're literally just plug and play.

After that, the only challenge is making sure you have plumbing connections at the bathroom and kitchen sites. But modern pex plumbing makes that pretty easy. You're just running flexible rubber tubes from the multiplexer. In this sort of design, I'd imagine you can just pre-print the holes for the tubes, or punch through where needed.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#19
post #7

Would this survive a rain storm or would it turn to mud? I couldn’t tell from the article.

> The collaboration between MC A and WASP has been supported by Mapei, a worldwide producer of construction materials, which has studied the clay materials and identified the key components within the raw earth mixture to create the final highly optimised printable product.

https://www.3dwasp.com/en/3d-printed-house-tecla/

I think its safe to assume that the raw clay has been processed into a material more suitable for masonry.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#20
post #7

Would this survive a rain storm or would it turn to mud? I couldn’t tell from the article.

It would pretty quickly erode away. I think that's why they've built it in a desert. Don't have to worry about rain if there is no rain!

It's in Ravenna, that's not a desert.

The material used probably involves some form of binder, rammed earth is also an option but it doesn't look like rammed earth from the photos.

Post reply on HN