The largest 3D printed residential area in the world
3D printers manage to build houses, we have already seen it on several occasions, and now it is being demonstrated again with the largest housing project in the world, a complex of 200 houses that will be built in Virginia over the next five years.
It will be in Pulaski, Virginia, and the company responsible for the construction will be Alquist 3D, which will create 3D-printed houses in the city.
Creating houses in 3D has several uses. Among them is lowering the cost and speeding up construction, but it also serves to gain experience when building human-friendly habitats on Mars in the future. From a military point of view, they are also using this technology to build barracks for their troops in training.
The Virginia project will use a 19-ton robotic printer, similar to the one the same company used to build a 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom house at Christmas last year.
The exterior structures will use only concrete, and the process will be similar to what we have seen before: the model of the house will be built using a computer program and then a 3D printer will extrude the concrete from its nozzle and layer it until construction is completed
The project contemplates four house designs with a final cost of no more than 350,000 dollars, with an approximate savings of 15 percent compared to the normal price of such a house in the same area. The house will be built with less labor and less wood, and will take much less time to complete.
That city was chosen because many people are expected to arrive due to the forecast of having 3,000 jobs thanks to the Volvo and Blue Star Manufacturing projects. 200 houses will help meet the demand.
Alquist is confident of adding several homes this year and adding more in the next four to five years, as all construction sites for the project have not yet been identified.
It is important to keep in mind that 3D printers only help the structure of the house at the moment, so the wiring, windows, doors and finishes will have to be done by hand.
