June 24, 2014
American additive manufacuturing company Emerging Objects focuses their researches on the development of innovative materials for large format 3D printing. Founded by Ronald Rael and San Fratello, Emerging Objects is interested in the creation of 3D printed architecture, building components and furnishings that can be seen as sustainable, inexpensive, stronger, smarter, recyclable, customizable to the environment.
One of their latest creation, an impressive large-scale, lightweight, additive manufactured structures named '3D Printed House 1.0', is built using salt harvested from San Francisco Bay. The 3D Printed House 1.0 (3D打印的房子 1.0) is designed for the Jin Hai Lake Resort Beijing in China. The project used renewable and innovative materials, such as salt and a unique cement polymer, to build components.
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The exterior of 3D Printed House 1.0 will be 3D printed using a patented 3D printed fiber reinforced cement polymer, developed by Emerging Objects. It is a rigid material stronger than standard concrete and objects produced using this material are extremely light weight. The finish can be machined, sanded, sand blasted, glossy or satin and in every case is semi-translucent.
The structure will be printed in Emerging Objects' 'Picoroco Block', a 12" x 12" x 12" modular 3D printed building block. "The variegated pattern allows for views and light to pass through in some areas of the wall, but not in others. The quality of light and shadow constantly changes across the surface with the passing of the day." notes Emerging Objects.
Inside, the bedrooms, bathrooms and family dining room are housed in translucent 3D printed vessels, called 'Saltygloo', which are constructed of 3D printable salt polymer, a combination of salt and glue, which makes an ideal 3D printing material, one that is strong, lightweight, translucent and inexpensive.
The designers use Zcorp/3D Systems and Voxeljet printers to build all the structures. The printer farm allows designers to build the large structures in relatively short time. "The facade prototype took less that 1 day to print. The Saltygloo prototype can be produced in a matter or weeks." Emerging Objects told 3ders.org.
It is anticipated that the building and the 3D printed components would be printed onsite, said Emerging Objects. Prototypes of the 3D printed salt rooms were constructed at full scale to demonstrate the potential of 3D printed architecture.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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Tomek: Thank you for being civil. Large scale printers are indeed available but what impressed me here is the resolution of details. If indeed they constructed the one existing dome structure using Voxeljet machines that makes more sense but it just shows that the project isn't very realistic.
lassi wrote at 6/25/2014 11:30:05 AM:
"Zcorp/3D Systems and Voxeljet printers to build all the structures" and they're 12x12x12 blocks. they're not printing the whole thing in one go. and apparently they got a pretty expensive bot farm churning them out. just read the article mkay?
Wild Bob wrote at 6/25/2014 8:32:05 AM:
This article should be taken with a pinch of house.
AssHat900 wrote at 6/24/2014 9:58:04 PM:
Just add water?
Tomek wrote at 6/24/2014 5:41:36 PM:
AMnerd, they're using the technology called "these are for the most part renderings and not real photos" There do exist a lot of large scale printers though. This is 2-3 years ahead of our current tech, not 10 years. Still 10 years ahead of affordability though. This is the custom edge of 3d printing.
TTB wrote at 6/24/2014 4:26:39 PM:
The article states that the Company uses Voxeljet and ZCorp Printers. They probably fill the Powder compartment with Salt and use the special Cement as Binder.
Dean wrote at 6/24/2014 3:19:06 PM:
I disagree--- All this technology is 10 years old... It is society that is catching up to the capabilities and possibilities of 3D printing and artistic architecture. The other reason it is taking so long is that developers want to wait until it is "Hip and cool" so that the associated premium cost (high profit) can be extracted from the public. As evidence, society could "print" houses all over the place at 10 cents on the dollar to provide low cost housing for the "underclasses", but no one -really wants- low cost housing! Finally, zoning laws are 100 years out of date and profitable developers want it to stay that way--- They don't want new competition!
AMnerd wrote at 6/24/2014 2:12:48 PM:
This news article seems to exist in another dimension where 3d printing is 10 years in front of where it is now. What technology are they using for this and is there information on the machine?
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