They’ve reinvented the Pagoda shelter of 1907, but just more expensive and taking longer to install.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
35 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22318 readers
74 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Personally I'm more interested in foam printing, which allows large scale plastic printing of insulated structures. For single story bungalows that should be just fine and transport of the building materials easy. Something like (recycled) PET foam printing should be possible. The printer would be more lightweight than concrete printing too. You could 3D print a clean circumference with PET filament first and then fill in with PET foam. Or you could have tool changing and mill down the irregular foam. And you can recycle the whole 3D print later too.
Foam insulation basically makes any sort of plumbing or electrical installation/renovation a fucking pain in the ass. Especially expanding foam.
Just 3D print the channels in.
Channels for... ? Wiring and plumbing? Not really that viable. Have you ever worked residential electrical renovation?
No? Sorry rather clueless about the practical aspects of that. But for electrical why is it not viable to just have channels you can push cables through? Do you mean because of corners?
Generally I was only thinking of simpler structures though like tiny houses or 1-2 room bungalows so it shouldn't be too complex wiring or plumbing.
When you're renovating a structure, often the existing circuits and piping systems (for which you've suggested channels) must be relocated or modified. Since the channels are created by additive manufacturing, you can't relocate or significantly modify them without cutting them away.
When you fill a space with expanding foam insulation, it fully encapsulates the wiring and piping. Often you can't actually see them anymore and you may not even be able to tell they're there. If you wanted to move something, you have to cut open the foam and dig it out. There will be foam everywhere and it will take hours to get all of the foam off.
It would be much, much, much easier to not use channels and to use the tried-and-true method of evenly spaced studs/compartments and filling the spaces with fiberglass insulation. Foam is such a headache in electrical that my former boss refused to work on new builds and renovations that used it.
Well yeah moving channels would be kinda impossible. I imagine while designing the house you'd plan for the electrical wires and 3D print clean channels you can slide wires or flexible piping through. You could also have extra channels near the floor and in the middle and vertical channels.
This would really only be good for lightweight structures that don't need much load bearing, like tiny houses or RVs or huts or bungalows. Maybe structures on house boats / catamarans.
Instead of renovating, just melt it all down to recycle it and 3D print a new house haha.
I just don't think that 3D printing channels and foam insulation instead of using a stud-like arrangement and fiberglass insulation would actually make sense for the large-scale insulated structures you mentioned in your initial comment.
The main reason to make these instead of normal buildings is cost and convenience and having to disassemble and ship the parts to be melted down into a new design instead of being able to renovate on-premises using any contractor you like is a big negative.
This type of construction seems not to make sense for insulated structures at the moment if renovation isn't affordable or convenient. It may not even be code compliant (electrical or building code) to install electricity in these structures.
Not relevant for an open shelter though.
Can we stop putting plastic everywhere tho
I mean, yeah, agreed in general but this wasn’t plastic.
The article doesn’t really highlight it, just says it in passing, but:
The structure itself is made of mortar, layered like dull-green frosting by a 3D-printing nozzle
So, it’s made of mortar (the stuff that holds bricks together normally).
That's fine but this guy I replied to is talking about printing PET plastic
