London-based Facit Homes has created a unique approach to making homes - digital fabrication. The building is designed on computer in pieces with every little details of your home, including orientation, material quantities, and even the position of individual plug sockets. The material used for the building is plywood and is cut on a CNC router. In the workshop these plywood pieces are assembled into lightweight blocks, which is called as Lego-like "cassettes". On site you only need two people to put together these cassettes like snapping together Lego bricks. FACIT describes these processes as a simpler way to make houses.
For the process from design to production FACIT has developed D-process. the D-process uses a 3D computer model of your home design and transforms on site every 3D digital components into physical components with high precision.
For building the house sustainably FACIT uses helical piles as foundation system. "Instead of digging big holes and filling them with concrete, one just screws them into the ground. If you ever have to dismantle or move the house, they screw right out again."
In this shipping container CNC router is working with plywood and making cassettes. CNC router is a great digital-fabrication tool that is capable of cutting and machining items from jewelry to even houses. While 3D printer adds or deposits material mainly with plastic, CNC router can work with materials such as wood, plastic, and aluminum. Scraps and sawdust is recycled for heat and power.
The principle of FACIT Homes is "design for assembly". The components are delivered on site with single structures (they called it "chassis") for insulation and finishes. You can start to assemble any section in any time. This way saves construction time and costs. Photos below shows floor and wall cassettes are being plugged in.
The photo below shows the basic strcuture is completed: holes are for spraying in insulation and channels are for installing wiring and lighting.
Bruce gives a short description of how the Facit Chassis accommodates the electrics and other services.
Finally, here is the completed interior:
(photo & video credit: Facit Homes)
This is an amazing eco-friendly house building concept and is very different from conventional site construction that requires a lot of equipment, cranes, people and creates a lot of waste. The components are produced as required for keeping costs down and the lead time is reduced.
A number of houses have been built using the FACIT system, Check out them and more videos at FACIT Homes.
Via FACIT Homes & Treehugger
Posted in 3D Printing Technology
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9fantastic the way of the future keep up the great work. whats the prices like for these structures?
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