3D printed concrete house debuts at Salone del Mobile 2018

In Milan, on Piazza Cesare Beccaria, a 100 square meter concrete house is on trial. With a curved silhouette and a flat roof overflowing with plants, something else stands out: the corrugated and structured walls were completely 3D printed on site by a robot manipulator on a movable base and constructed within a week

CLS Architetti’s Massimiliano Locatelli worked with Italcementi Heidelberg Cement Group, Dutch construction company CyBe Construction and Arup to design and bring to life 3D Housing 05, a prototype 3D printed concrete house that was created in response to the growing crisis in the affordable housing was created.

3D Housing 05 is currently on display at the Salone del Mobile design festival and has a living area, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom made up of 35 modules, each of which took between 60 and 90 minutes to print. The entire house took 48 hours to complete.

In the prototype, striped composite walls are highlighted by the sleek brass casements and door frames, the marble bathroom fittings, the sleek plaster of a possible wall coating, and the polished brass sheets that make up the kitchen counters, showing the possibility that 3D-printed houses may appear raw on the outside inside they can certainly be beautiful.

More important, however, are the sustainable and adaptable possibilities that a 3D printed building offers. 3D Housing 05 focuses on five basic principles: creativity, sustainability, flexibility, affordability and speed. The house can not only be extended outwards, but also built upwards, for example to include another floor, or even be relocated to a different location.

Made from concrete, it can also be demolished, pulverized and reconstructed using the same composite material, a mixture of cementitious powders, binders and aggregates, which can even come from local soil. This process also radically lowers construction costs and gives many of the world’s poorest people the opportunity to build urgently needed homes in a short period of time.

3D Housing 05 may be the first of its kind in Europe, but 3D printed structures have appeared all over the world, from Austin, Texas to Russia to China.