A house 3D printed from raw earth

I am too, instinctively... though I consciously try to push through it.

OTOH, I think architect-speak is the actual glue between art philosophy and wider movements. Why is "postmodernism" (or modernism, etc.) an epistemology, political ideology, artistic sense and architectural school? They don't seem obviously related Why did Ayn Rand write about an architect to demonstrate her thoughts?

Logical or not, these "movements" are connected somehow and they to ebb and flow together.

There are a lot of lessons here for tech nerds. You could easily describe "agile vs waterfall" in modernist vs postmodernist terms. Apple & Google's product aesthetic does reflect typically modernist ideas... form from function or whatnot.

A couple of years ago I went deep into talking to literal flat earthers (friends, whom I love). I learned (and still processing) a lot. Anti-intellectualism plays a fundamental role, but the key parts are a level or two deeper to that. You need to realize that psychologists, political "think tankers," dieticians or economists actually do present themselves as equally authoritative to physicists. They're wrong all the time, and many of their loudest talking points turn out to be fads in retrospect. EG Monetarism seems to be dying ATM, despite having been unchallengeable for 40 years. That happens in physics too, but relativity didn't make Newtonian mechanics seem like pseudoscience in retrospect. To a MOP though, there isn't an obviously discernible difference between Newtonian mechanics and the food pyramid. Both are intellectualism, claiming the authority of science. All they see is suits, academic titles, and positions of authority who get to be the authority.

Anyway... because architect/artists speak can be bullshit, is often very clumsy, and we can't discern BS from insight, we assume it's all bullshit or a way to get away with bullshit. Often, its our own ignorance.

I credit PG with bridging these worlds for me.

A pure compression structure is a pool of liquid. If you add some shear strength, so the structure can withstand compression and shear but no tension, you can additionally build a heap of sand or a pyramid with no internal voids. To build a vertical wall, much less an arch or vault or nonuniformly-drying adobe†, your material needs to withstand some tension—a property you only really come to appreciate after attempting to build or plaster with adobe containing too little clay or too little straw‡, then watching the structure crumble as it dries.

It's common to analyze masonry structures as "pure compression structures", but that's a useful simplification permitted by considering the bricks to be atomic units. The tensile stress trying to peel the bottom surface off a brick arch is small, but it's real, and if not resisted by the tensile strength of the brick, the arch collapses from the inside out, like the sand arches that sometimes form above an aperture in a moving-sand-picture desk toy. Fired-clay bricks have enough tensile strength that we don't have to think about this, but adobe is just at the limit where safe and reliable building is possible with enough care. For this reason, traditional adobe walls are very strictly vertical, but their surfaces are not; they are significantly thinner at the top than at the base.

(I'm not an architect or structural engineer, but I spent much of my childhood in adobe structures, I've taken a few adobe-construction classes, and in the process I've built a few adobe structures that are still standing.)

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† Nonuniformly-drying adobe is not a particular type of adobe. It's the nature of the drying process that, during drying, the surface of the brick or wall is dryer than the core—it's precisely that moisture gradient that causes moisture to diffuse out of the core, thus allowing the core to dry. But that same moisture gradient sets up a tensile stress in the surface, which you can diminish but not eliminate by adjusting the adobe mix. Even portland-cement concrete does this, though to a smaller extent.

‡ Straw or other high-performance, fibre-reinforced stabilising agents, of course.

The interesting thing with all these alternative construction methods is that they end up having much larger costs in one way or another. I'm a huge fan of "alternative living" (lived in a boat I built myself for years) but even I can't convince myself to build a home with one of these alternative methods (shipping container, 3D printing, compressed earth block, adobe, wattle and daub, concrete block, etc.) First there's the permitting process. Then there's the construction costs. Then there's the safety aspect (many of these homes are a disaster with earthquakes/fire/water issues.)

An underappreciated thing is how easy having straight walls makes construction. Having lived in a boat with curved walls, I would never consider a land home with curved walls. The beauty of the curve does NOT make it worth it, unless you plan to hire someone at great expense to do all the work for you. Yes, it's that bad, your 4 day cabinet project will become 4 weeks in no time. Instead of being able to simply plop in premade components (windows, benches, cabinets, beds, etc etc) you'll now need to custom build absolutely everything. Even the parts that seem simple are not. Laying flooring in a square room is simple enough. In a small curved room, you'll have to cut a ton of pieces with a strange curve. Then you have to lay them to meet up with the curved walls. It's a nightmare. You're also negating part of the eco-friendly aspect, by the way, when you have to discard huge amounts of curvy pieces of material (trust me, you'll cut large pieces wrong more than a few times.) That's one reason why I find this 3D printing clay project quite cool - you can simply 3D print benches, cabinets, walls etc to nestle right up to the curve.

I'd be very curious to hear from anyone here who tried to save money while building a home, but I would suspect that the answer is to go small and minimize labor. Even minimizing labor, you're going to need permits, a foundation, electrical, HVAC, a roof, etc, so it's not going to be nearly as cheap as you think.

If anyone is interested in a good cost breakdown of house construction costs, I like this one: https://www.nahbclassic.org/generic.aspx?sectionID=734&gener...

You'll notice that the sum total of framing + exterior finishes (framing, exterior wall finishes, roof, windows and doors, etc) come out to around 30% of the construction cost of a new home, or around 18.5% of the total cost of a new home. So this machine can save you at maximum 30% of the construction cost. The rest is pretty much fixed: landscaping+deck+driveway = 6.8%, interior finishing = 25.4%, plumbing/electrical/HVAC = 15%, foundation = 12%, permits/sewer/fees = 6%.

Which gets to my last point: the issue with technologies like these is that people compare their best-case projections for one part of the system to the total costs of the existing solution (traditional stick built construction) in the same way people make arguments for Gadgetbahn type projects. You see that the average new single family home costs $485k and suddenly a $50k shipping container home looks really appealing. But that's ignoring two things - one, the costs that are not included in that $50k, and two, that you're comparing a projection to reality. Compare apples to apples, and you'll realize that a stick-built kit for several hundred square feet can be had for $29k: https://allwoodoutlet.com/LARGE-CABIN-KITS/Allwood-Avalon-54...

That's partially true.

But, if you build a house and it collapses on top of you, who's responsible? Who pays for your medical expenses?

Even worse, if the house collapses and it falls on top of your guests, who's responsible? Who pays for everyone's medical expenses?

That's just one random example, there are many ways a house can fail.

There are a few shots showing the floorplan and utilities.

This illustrates the bath and kitchen areas. Looks as if there's a cooktop but no oven. The bath includes a sink, shower, and WC.

https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2021/02/a-3d-...