Picture caption: How concrete layers are built up in a 3D printed home
Using a printer which fits into one lorry, three 3D printed homes have now been completed in Ireland. The 132-day construction project is the first of its kind in the world to meet internationally recognised technical standards.
This new council housing in Dundalk, County Louth, paves the way for similar social housing projects in the UK. Harcourt Architects, the Manchester-based architects behind the council-funded project, are already in talks with UK-based private developers and social housing providers about similar projects.
The Co. Louth homes are three-bedroomed, in a terrace of three. Each 110m2 property cost approximately £205,000 to build, including traditional roof structures and internal and external finishes. This price is expected to reduce on future projects.
Speed is one of the key benefits of this construction method, and the system being used means that reinforcing bars aren’t needed. Using the gantry-based 3D printer, each layer of concrete takes 18 minutes to ‘cure’ before the next layer is added.
This results in load-bearing, double-cavity concrete walls which are built in less than two thirds of the time taken for a standard project. The compressive strength of the walls is around five times that achieved with traditional construction methods.
Richard Mullin, one of the directors at Harcourt Architects, has said that the 3D printing approach saves “roughly 20 per cent in embodied carbon compared with concrete block construction”.
The project used locally sourced constituents in the concrete, replacing Portland cement with materials such as GGBS (ground granulated blast-furnace slag).
With the combination of carbon savings and speed to build, this project sounds promising, although it will be interesting to see whether people are keen to live in 3D-printed structures.
We are nowhere near the point of 3D printers stealing tradespeople’s jobs, but no doubt that’s a possibility over the medium to long term. If 3D printing becomes widespread, will bricklaying eventually become a niche skill, like thatching? At least roofers are safe for now, as I’ve yet to see a gantry system for printing roofs!
Meanwhile, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
