The small houses that the Chinese company Winsun New Materials is building may look plain, but they represent a huge breakthrough in rapid construction.
Amazingly, or scarily, enough the company used a giant 22 foot tall 33 foot wide 3D printer to create 10 small houses in 24 hours. Each home is made from recycled materials and costs approximately US $4800, a sum that is low enough to be a realistic option for the less affluent in rural Chinese areas as well as those in low income in metropolitan areas.
Instead of printing the houses at one time, Winsun’s 3D printer creates building blocks by layering up a cement and glass mixture in structural patterns. The print pattern is diagonally reinforced and leaves plenty of air gaps, which act as insulation. CAD is used for the architectural plan and calculates tracing paths that take into consideration insulation materials, plumbing, electrical lining and windows, which can be added once the house is assembled.
WinSun is currently developing a plan to build 100 recycling factories in China, or one every 300km in order to collect the waste and turn it into materials that can be used for 3D printing. Winsun’s goal is to have zero waste from the construction of new buildings, and the company estimates building costs can be lowered by as much as 50% with this new technique.
Of course this is a good idea. The closest we’ve come, stateside, is Pre-Fab “panels” which just save time and waste in our cookie-cutter housing industry. But remember, we have used pre-cast concrete for a long, long time “commercially”. But the housing industry is off limits.
Because anything new is Tabu – a man making a “million dollars a minute”, can never be convinced to change, not even for “two million dollars a minute”. . . . I once tried to convince folks to use interlocking polystyrene blocks that could be filled with concrete, would be quicker than even prefabricated panels, and would yield R-30 finished residential walls – R-30 was viewed as a “loss”, because the building code was R-12 to R-18.