The Most Innovative 3D Printed House In The World [Mense-Korte]

we're going to take a look at a two-story 3d printed house designed by mensa corte an architecture firm in germany built with an autonomous printing machine capable of working day and night this model is the most innovative and intricate 3d printed house to date mensa corte has deeply considered all of the possibilities this printer has to offer and implemented many of them in the design of this building largely on-site implementing a few parts printed off-site for overhangs that couldn't be printed in sequence with the rest of the building this project uses a cobad 3d printer which is assembled as you can see with a crane and manual labor to attach some of the screws and rivets the six vertical pillars which enable the z-axis are attached to half-ton concrete blocks in order to make sure they stay exactly where they're put the stability of these pillars is crucial to the consistency of your print if they move during the print then the printer's alignment will be off that will result in a failed print or at the very least something very unattractive three of the vertical pillars in parallel are joined with a horizontal bar that will enable the y-axis for the printer the other three on the opposite side will have a similar setup one more horizontal beam will run on a track between the two other horizontal beams in order to operate the x-axis for the printer once it's fully assembled they can get to printing now looking at their printer it looks quite different from some of the other prints that we've seen in the past on this channel you may notice the horizontal metal reinforcement in between the walls along with the black two or three inch diameter tube they have taken considerations for hvac plumbing and electrical all within the 3d model to be printed this means that during the print process there are various intervenous steps taken by humans to place things where they belong avoiding the need to make cuts into the concrete to do modifications after the print the moldability of this material before it cures it can be seen as a challenge but it's also an advantage in many ways it makes it simple to put oddly shaped parts in the wall and have a perfect seal around them some of these walls are spaced apart significantly because they're exterior walls that will need to be filled with insulation to achieve the r value required for this building in germany i often talk about how companies will begin rethinking the construction process from the old ways of thinking about it to ways that will accommodate these new technologies which automate large portions of the processes it's clear to me on this project that the architects had a very deep and thorough understanding of the capabilities this technology had before they implemented many of these designs the level of detail and consideration in attempt to maximize the use of 3d printed technology is completely unprecedented in this project and it's the only one like it so far in the world they test many design elements from patterns overhang strategies and even printed furniture within the building functional things like a shower and a fireplace this house turned experimentation up to the max and reconsidered every design element even a portion of the window frame is printed as opposed to many projects which have just framed out their windows this printer requires about three people to operate on site give or take one depending on experience and size of the print they may have had more people on site for this project because they're doing more than just operation of the printer they may have a designated person for electrical and plumbing fixtures another person must control the heavy concrete hose pumping into the extruder head and one more person standing by for safety sake who can adjust pause or stop things if necessary from the computer the material they're using is called itec 3d it was developed by heidelberg cement ag and was specifically developed for 3d printing the construction technology which was carried out for the first time in germany passed all official approval processes without any problems many people think 3d printing is a way to make a house without any effort but it certainly requires some oversight if you want things to go smoothly this guy is measuring the temperature of the concrete to know how quickly it will cure gaps can be made in the wall for m e equipment by inserting a metal surface above a gap between two printed walls from there the printer is able to print right over that surface and have a smooth layer that looks right in line with the last this horizontal reinforcement that almost resembles a staple is inserted manually a task like this could be automated in the future i'm sure as great as this project is they learned many lessons while building it so the next one may even be better it seems the first foot or so has gravel fill with insulation on top this is most likely because maintaining a low center of gravity improves the structural stability of the home from this bird's eye view you are able to see the white insulation in the exterior of the walls this is probably a foam insert insulation which is either pre-cut to size or sprayed in between the gaps of the wall you may have noticed the makeshift tent that they're printing in this tent prevents the outside elements from influencing the quality of their layer lines that's why they look so good now we'll take a look inside there's the fireplace i was talking about it looks like it might make for a great pizza oven they truly printed almost everything many of the projects we see are just a printed shell of a building that needs to be completely constructed from the inside but this one after the 3d printer is done looks almost complete there's nothing boring or basic about this building every single aspect is strange curvature unique angles and something completely different from anything we've seen before let's check out a rendering of what it may look like when it's complete i have to say mensa corte did a terrific job architecture has a reputation for being stuck in its ways but they've gone completely out of the box to discover something completely new the design elements of this building are incredibly unique because they're tailored to the capabilities of the concrete 3d printer that created it and not just the aesthetic things visible to the naked eye the guts of this building are just as impressive as the design it seems they've taken advantage of the free form style of the printed concrete to minimize the total distance of wire and piping necessary for the building the floor plan is quite open and modern i believe the home was sold to a private buyer so it's unclear whether or not an interior tour will ever be publicly available while we're talking about some of the mechanical equipment it's an appropriate time to mention that once again we see an mtech machine featured on the build site if anyone from m tech is watching this you guys should sponsor my channel on the right of this picture you can see some gray printed concrete currently supported by some lumber below any idea how that was put there more on that later at this point the protective tent around the printer is removed because all of the printing is done with the tent gone the printer is then disassembled and potentially brought to its next printing location here's a close-up of the interior wall i believe that's for plumbing however it very well may serve as a simple path to run conduit through in the future there's a simple beauty to the organization of all the mechanical electrical and plumbing equipment for this building it all looks so efficient coming from one place and running nearly directly to where it must go with print lines this smooth i think it's best to just leave the concrete exposed or implement a simple design like the one here this feature seems to be a 3d printed bathtub although i would be quite surprised if that concrete was capable of holding any water on its own to assemble the roof they used precast concrete forms that were craned in and dropped into place the pre-assembled rebar cages on their top side mean there's less work to do on site after the equipment is inserted and the floor is poured in with perry's comprehensive construction experience in germany i'm sure they chose one of the most efficient options for their use case until we find an affordable material that's printable horizontally i don't see any automation happening on site for roofing solutions in the near future now let's hear from an architect from mensa date directly about this project hi i'm madonna marquarta from the engineering company mensa court in beckham our company developed and designed the first printed residential home in germany and did the whole structural engineering for the project according to the project in beckham we established the company household which is one of the first of its kind in germany to me is one of the owners of household concrete 3d printing means a new freedom in designing buildings building homes with printing machines helps us to solve the huge problem of skilled worker shortage and allows us to build homes in half of the time compared to usual construction types and last but not least we will soon be able to build more cost efficient than others too we believe in the enormous potential of 3d concrete printing and are already into planning for further projects in germany many people in this industry debate the merits of on-site versus off-site construction but mensa corte had other plans in mind they had design dreams that weren't possible with the on-site printer in order to achieve their vision they used an off-site printer to print some of the parts that would need to be installed later on these parts that had to be printed off-site were then organized nicely and sent over to the building i'm sure if they wanted to these parts could have been printed in advance on the site of the building however it's really cool that they managed to implement both off-site and on-site 3d printing for this project because that had never really occurred to me before i've only ever really seen one or the other in the past once on site the pre-printed units are assembled to the building manually i hope this gives some comfort to the few people who have commented concerns about automation and jobs there are many phenomenal engineers working on this technology but not everybody working with this technology needs to be an engineer it will require many contractors and for the time being often students who are assisting with projects in experimental settings the pieces contain vertical steel which can be used as a connection point for the hoist the same vertical pieces protrude from the bottom which can attach to the printed component below in order to ensure a snug fit there are many of these pre-fabricated concrete units each has to be not too large that it's unmanageable transporting them is quite a hassle during the transport they can sometimes chip or even crack they exist purely for aesthetic purposes so it may be cheaper to opt out of this kind of design as mentioned earlier these pieces are reinforced with vertical rebar these off-site made forms offer a bunch of new design options that were previously inaccessible just because they can't be printed in sequence with the rest of the layers if you've enjoyed this video or learned something new make sure to like and subscribe so that you don't miss another update on where the 3d printed construction industry is going next if you haven't yet take a listen to my podcast episode with the ceo of cobot

Channel: Jarett Gross

Views: 468,656

Rating: 4.9210877 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: qWBA-6NgIJg

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Nadeus87]

This is not the first 3d-printed house, but still great to see this application getting developed further.

[u/ThatsWhataboutism]

I think I've been reading too many books on WW2.

[u/onceiwasnothing]

3d printing metal? That is big.

[u/keepthepace]

I love that the blocks that hold the machine are also 3d printed.

[u/Renovatio_]

So I'm not sold on 3d printed houses and feel free to change my mind.

Firstly. Plumbing and electricity are much more difficult to install in a solid wall. Much easier to get those roughed in when just studs. Doing this in the concrete wall could easily double or triple the respective labor time of each subcontractor. Meanwhile you can frame a house pretty darn quickly.

Second. Precision or failed print. Traditional framing is much more forgiving.

Third. Concrete isn't exactly eco friendly. It has quite the carbon foot print while lumber is less.

[u/jack_tukis]

I want one.