Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2014 as a news item, when Contour Crafting was still a prototype. 3D-printed construction has moved on a great deal since, with several companies now printing homes commercially, and the 15-storey hotel “speed record” refers to a 2011-2012 project.
Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California has built a giant 3D printer that could put up a house in just 24 hours. The technology, known as Contour Crafting, could completely transform the construction industry.
The Contour Crafting system only needs two large rails to be installed and the house design to be loaded. From there, the robot builds the house by sliding along the rails and shaping the home out of concrete. The remaining details, such as fitting doors and windows, would be left to humans.
The advantages of this innovative building system would be speed (until now the speed record belonged to the Chinese construction system that can build a 15-storey hotel in just 6 days) and lower construction costs. Some people think that if this approach takes off, it could do away with much of the labour force and create more unemployment, but Professor Khoshnevis believes quite the opposite: it would not eliminate jobs. If anything, it would create more of them.
For now the project is at the testing stage, although everything suggests it is perfectly viable for single-family homes. And who knows whether, in the future, those enormous cranes will disappear and be replaced by giant 3D printers when it comes to putting up buildings…
You can see how the system works in this video: Contour Crafting on YouTube
Featured image: Alfredo Milano (video); project by WASP and Mario Cucinella Architects, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
