My love for disruptive technologies has been my life story. My father was a machinist for 34 yrs, making the same parts, over and over, day after day, mostly night shift. I have spent my life working with technology and computers, driven over a million miles visiting many companies and meeting great people, and never looked back with any regrets.
He's absolutely correct about the economics of this technology. The money saved in this process will go into other sectors of the economy. Typically sectors that improve the quality of life. Looking at auto's, despite lots of regulatory headwinds, robotics and advancements in tech has allowed them to create much better vehicles than just 10 years ago for relatively the same costs (inflation adjusted).
Great stuff... this technology needs to address Maslows Heirachy- the Poor/needy FIRST then for those that follow on the list of needs. Ultimately once everyone that needs a home and shelter has it then the focus can be turned to other business making ventures. Sadly patents and greedy corporate elitists take technologies like this and use them for their own benefit and not for the benefit of humanity. Glad this info is out, reaching the public!
Unless Samareh pays for the low cost housing out of her own pocket, you must be smoking some good weed! Socialist countries can not exist on planet earth!!!
...Schools could be likewise built into these housing projects, hospitals, universities...everything required to train, employ and take care of a populace from conception into old age. This development in construction is an extraordinarily positive step and such a huge opportunity to right so many global wrongs.
Just heard a talk from Prof Khoshnevis at my university. The idea of doing this is quite a revolution but honestly I don't think it's that's far away. And to the constrcutuction of taller/bigger structures it's actually possible to attach the "printer" to the structure and continue building from there.
That's addressed at 11:00. It's also a rather short-sighted sentiment; the advent of mass-produced automobiles didn't result in a net labor loss due to the obsolescence of horse carriages, it generated an entirely new industry's worth of employment. Likewise, a system like this would generate opportunities in supply & materials management, architectural design, machine design & maintenance, materials R&D, and still have plenty of skill manual labor jobs left over for surveying, finishing, etc.
this is revolutionary because you can house 365 families or single people within one year per machine. You can create robust and active towns, cities, educational opportunities. Plus, no trees need to be cut. It uses earth materials which is environmentally friendly approach to building. In america, every suburban house is built on wood, which degrades and has a very short lifespan. We can essentially build, move, and than rebuild and even the so called civilized world can live in dignity.
Hell yeeeeeeahhhhhh!!! This is the beginning of the end of exploitation, and desperation. My only fear is that when the poorest of the poor are well off enough - the extremely wealthy will not be able to exploit them. This leads to a sort of unease in these exceptionally wealthy - and a temptation to undermine these types of efforts. But seriously, thank you to anyone who devotes their life to decrease suffering. Engineers, healthcare workers, philosophers and even some politicians. You ROCK!
as to insulation, a high R value spray foam can be injected into the hollow space in the walls. in addition, once built, if further insulation was needed, the interior of the home could be framed in the traditional manner and extra layers of insulation could be installed.
I really hope this vision will come to reality soon & mass produced. Think of the millions of homeless people who are living in poverty. If city developers build well planned 3D printed houses and cities for the masses - think of the enormous savings on property / housing prices for the people. The reason why we need a day job is because 30-40% of our salary is paid for housing loans. Hence, if 3D printed cities are well developed, price of houses can be reduced (but this requires great political will). Then, all of us will no longer be a slave to the banks paying mortgages for 30-40 years of our lives while working 10-12 hours a day (or more). Reduction in mortgage loan payment for an average household will mean MORE savings for education,healthcare, retirement and other expenses. Therefore, a loss of job (if any) would lead to less hardship for a household as you are paying less mortgage which is the biggest expense for any household. As a result, we no longer need to fear the loss of jobs in the property sector as less resources is required to pay monthly mortgages for an average family and other jobs will continually be created in other sectors in future.
pat raj The technology is actively used - in real life construction - in China. They printed some emergency housing and more recently a multi-family house. I think this technology is a way to make concrete construction much more affordable and usable instead of painful form work to cast concrete in place or heavy prefab elements that have to be transported by truck. Since the printer can in principle build any form, it will be up to engineers to find out if some form will hold up. The Iraninan builders were in fact much advanced: they used earth quake proof design already in the Middle Ages: most Iranian domes - the beautiful colored domes - are earthquake proof! They are all built as double shells so they have shear webs between the two shells. The technique of building domed hallways and rooms with at least one wall that goes up bit higher so the arched bricks can be leaned on it so the construction won't need any scaffolding, is ingenious and extremely beautify. The Iranians also developed the first gravity fed air-conditioning system with a tower that acts as wind scoop, guides the air down over a bed of rocks or water to cool the air and draws it into the living room by means of a domed roof with a hole in the center - completely simple and ingenious. They didn't whine about lack of work places from not needing wood structures. They created other jobs which society needed. I think that every technology has its enemies initially as yes, it will require rethinking and retooling and retraining workers for other jobs, but that problem existed many times and was overcome (think of coal fired locomotives, taken over by Diesel and electric. Think of horse drawn carriages taken over by self conducted cars. Think of coal mines taken over by oil wells. Think of brick layers overtaken by steel buildings and prefab wall panels. It takes retraining of workers, but there will be other jobs arising from eliminating some construction jobs. Not all jobs can be eliminated, as these printed houses also need windows and doors! which may still have to be hung by hand. But casting concrete isn't really such a great job and if the machine can do it, all the better. Besides, concrete needs no painting. How great - no flaking paint!
Brigitte Meier Assuming you're talking about WinSun, the company that made 10 homes in 24 hours, Khoshnevis actually has explained that they have copied his design. CEO Ma Yihe of WinSun actually visited Khoshnevis years ago in his lab and learned much about his process. Then Yihe turned around and started his own printing. Contour Crafting can be traced back to 1996, with Khoshnevis.
Nate Moore I think it's a stretch to say WinSun has copied his design, they are quite different. Khoshnevis is talking about a 3D printer to build entire houses, WinSun is essentially printing pieces which are transported and assembled on-site, modular in other words. Khoshnevis is talking about a portable light-weight printer, WinSun is using a huge fixed printer in a factory, it's 6.6m x 10m x 40m. Khoshnevis's idea for CC is much more complex and but will be amazing if he can get the funding and build the machine. WinSun is essentially using a much simpler model in the meantime. Happy that someone's doing it though!
Though there is a question of space. You cannot just expect people to build with free will because if everyone done it our planet would inevitably run out of space.
Oh, I completely understand that much. My best friend is a plumber by trade, and he loves this idea. He hates having to go to Home Depot to try to find that specific pipe fitting or elbow joint and have to make do with something else because what he needs isn't in stock. Plastic retaining bracket broke? Replacement is impossible? 3D Printing to the rescue! I've had this problem with PCs. I had a standoff for a motherboard break, forcing me to jury rig something to avoid an electrical short.
Totally agree. There's a book that address these problems. "The robots will steal your job, but it's ok" by F. Pistono you can see his talk on TedxVienna
In a sense, particle board is "printed" wood, only instead of being jet sprayed layer by layer, it is compressed, board by board. It doesn't look like conventional wood because it is made for price and strength, not looks. But it has to be mentioned that printing something is not the same as growing something, even though they are kind of similar. When they "print" organs, they are actually printing a scaffold on which cells attach and grow.
This will not decrease the cost of building. I am a concrete contractor and know the industry rather well. Like when paving machines came out and can lay roads 10 times faster than manual labor. However, material costs will "suprisingly" go up accordingly and the "laborers" will turn into concrete plant operators or raw material distributors. So this will not put people out of work or make it less expensive to build. It will just have good quality control, thats all.
A few things I wanted to figure out are : if something like a pipe bursts or a electirical fault occurs and you have to take down the wall, how do you go about repairing it, since the wall was designed by using a injection system. Would you just do it the normal way or have to get other special equipment to repair it? I love the idea of this, it turns everyone in the building industry into potential designers, you may lose the bricklayer but instead he would be the man who monitors the machine.
A building inspection would be necessary. Any number of unexpected circumstances could arise. The equipment would obviously need to be maintained and each batch of concrete tested which would happen prior to the building commencing, however environmental factors could come into play (rain, wind, bird flies into wet concrete), plus there is still room for human error as the machine would need to be set up on perfectly level ground of equal height at both sides or hoisted if the block wasn't flat.
Great technology. It will save on hurricanes, insurance, building permits, bad architecture will vanish, themed neighborhoods will reappear, perhaps old New York, a new Roman empire themed city with replicas of Rome's grand imperial buildings, this is the best tech I have heard of in years....
I like this. Imagine cheap, affordable, structurally sound, AND lovely little homes in places like Haiti, Ne Orleans, anywhere semi-permanent, longer-term housing was needed! No more cramped trailers, no litter strewn campgrounds! I see a great future for this. I'm a little skeptical about the plumbing, wiring being automatic, but even if they can't be auto-installed, I'm sure it'll still be cheaper!
I don't see it as a problem at all. Requisite support structures can be printed at the same time as the permanent structure. A temporary column can be printed along the inside of a dome. A buttress can be printed on the outside of a wall as the wall itself is growing. Keep in mind that this technique is very much more like coil pot construction than brick laying, so surprisingly little support is required anyway. Google "3D filament printers" for examples of the same technique done with plastic.
As soon as I have learned about 3D printers I have been thinking how something like that could be used to print houses. It is really good to see that someone has already made progress on that field and I believe that house printing is future.
*Sign me up.* The Printer That Can Print A 2,500 Square Foot House In 20 Hours. We have seen huge advancements in 3D printing. We’ve even seen oversized wrenches printed that measure 1.2 meters in length. Now, we can print an entire 2,500 sqft house in 20 hours. In the TED Talk video, Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), demonstrates automated construction, using 3D printers to build an entire house in 20 hours. In manufacturing we use a process called CAD/CAM (computer-aided design / computer-aided manufacturing). 3D models are designed on a computer and then manufactured using CNC Machines or 3D printers. The design is manufactured into a physical object automatically, with instruction from 3D computer model to physical object without human interface. Automated construction basically scales up this process. The size of the 3D printer is large enough to construct walls by depositing concrete based material layer upon layer to build a wall. www.contourcrafting.org #futuretech. #constructiontechnology. #contourcrafting.
За бассейном стоял белый домик, такой же обтекаемый и почти бесформенный, как Институт времени. Коля, когда они подошли поближе, увидел, что стена вся в мелких порах, словно пенистая. Отец у Коли строитель, поэтому он всегда интересуется строительными материалами и немного в них разбирается.
I mean I loved Movie Criticism 101, Astronomy 101, Military Science 101... all those 101 classes were always fun. The actual knowledge that is useful to me, and that I make money off of because other people don't know, all of that came from boring, monotonous, sometimes painful classes, where even more than a year of blood sweat & tears was rewarded with an 'A' or 'B'.... thats just me though. Charisma in a prof is one who will stay an extra office hours just to help you with a concept.
The animation showed the addition of supports for window and door openings. It's easy to also factor in the automatic installation of windows. I suspect either way there will always need to be a final walk through and touchups by a human, but it's a massive step forward.
you forget that this creates jobs as well. such a printer needs maintenance, and supervision is needed as well to search for imperfections in the building, making sure the printer isn't making any mistakes and the building materials have good quiality. also, this technology creates new opportunities which creates new jobs, space colonies is just an example.
No, it's not a conspiracy theory. The Teamsters are the leadership of the unions in the USA and Canada. They influence the workers that would otherwise be doing the construction. Their website is teamster.org if you want to see more about their organization..
The wet cement is strong enough to stand on it's own until it's dried. Also, there are additives that can make concrete set up in just a manner of minutes, instead of hours. Source : I work with concrete.
Adapt or die. No one is allowed to stand in the way of progress. Even if your life and the lives of a couple million others are thrown in to disarray, this technology and others like it benefits millions if not billions.
Practically, this system won't have "minimal human involvement." For efficiency and quality control, you're still going to have a crew of guys for each machine feeding it concrete, transporting materials to the build site, double-checking its measurements, pre-install testing the house's electrical systems, and making sure the equipment doesn't break, clog, or go apeshit and flood an in-progress apartment with slurry. This isn't a colossal step away from modern crane-based prefab construction.
That may not strictly be true: skilled workers will still be needed for maintenance. New designs will benefit from skilled workers. Complex projects will still be built (perhaps even more often). There are regions with a limited construction season yet still there are still workers and projects - I'm not convinced those workers are migratory or unemployed for large segments of the year.
He's just saying it'll allow for a more diverse workforce than just the current status quo of strong men. You're right about there being more people able to work in the sector, but the point is that the amount of resources society devotes to construction could be greatly reduced. This will free up workers to focus on other areas, and a lot of people will get good housing who previously could not afford it.
aw yis, tens of thousands of people that can then afford a home. What's better, knowing that someone out there who you don't know, still has a job as a plumber, or knowing that you can afford to keep your own family safe, dry and warm.
Absolutely amazing! This is the future. Design you own house on your computer (or use a creative commons model from the internet), hire a 3d-printing company and order your creation.
The problem with using Hemp is that one would have to grow the hemp, first. The demand for hemp would skyrocket, and the amount of arable land available for growing would be insufficient (given that more land is needed to grow food, not to mention the increasing demand for corn-based ethanol).
That's like saying every time you scan and print a document, you need to scientifically examine each new printed piece, to make sure it's exactly the same. Machines have an exponentially lower error rate compared to humans. And machines don't grow tired, bored, lazy, greedy, wasteful, unreliable, etc. "It's not the tool, it's how you use it"
They are not currently available for purchase commercially, from what I can tell. Design and build one at home. It is really a juiced up rep-rap or makerbot machine that uses concrete rather than plastic, or sugar or icing.
We need set of transition based plans to get the ball rolling. There's some groups already out there: Open Source Ecology, The Venus Project, etc. A progressive technology that can feed millions of starving people is C.F.S( Cybernated Farm Systems), CEO is Douglas Mallette, there's a lecture he did in Oslo Norway which explains a lot of the general plan and ideas.
the presentation and the comments are lively. While acknowledging the problems cited for this invention can also be tackled in another way. My approach is to provide better tool which will curtail waste and increase productivity of the construction worker. My approach benefits construction worker as he will earn more and also benefit the investors as they will spend less
That's fine. You can get a job maintaining the equipment, designing the software, transporting the equipment, maintaining the buildings after assembly etc. If you're incapable of performing those sort of tasks, it's no ones fault but your own. In addition, construction is a skilled labour, you need years of experience and education to work in construction. You don't just walk in to construction jobs from the street.
For the next day hundred years, there will still be conventional construction jobs in most of the industrialized world. We simply are not going to tear down all the existing housing and replace them using this or similar technology. All of the existing homes will need maintenance and remodeling. The construction trades for new construction will hopefully evolve into something like we saw but it will never replace the traditional tradesmen in my lifetime.
Here's what you can do. Make these machines that build houses and build large tracts of zero energy homes or net positive homes. Rent them out to get a huge return. When you die, give them away for free to randomly selected needy families.
durned character limit A phrase above should have read "those bandannas are *not* THE ONE Jimi hendrix wore at Woodstock." Hendrix's bandanna probably gets traded for Paul McCartney's original draft of "Yesterday" or something like that. So yeah, there's still a market for very special items which remain scarce, but nobody goes hungry or lacks shelter or really anything else BUT the special item. Machines grow the apples, and they make bandannas in the Hendrix style. And that's good enough.
Consumption is only one half of the equation. In order to consume, things must be produced. In simple terms, if everyone eats apples, but no one grows them, pretty soon there won't be any apples for anyone.
Also if you listen to the whole video he does cover the concerns raised by the "reduction" of job opportunities due to it's use over conventional manual labor.
Remember when they said that CD's would be much cheaper because of reduced production costs? Remember MP3's? Remember all those other technical improvements that would make things cheaper? It just doesn't happen. The people who own the technology will always use the price-to-alternative method. As long as it will create value in the high margin applications, it will not be used for third world situations.
Most foundations crack. The reason the rest of the house doesn't is because there is some give between the different portions of the house, and when a wall does crack, the problem is more or less isolated. What do you think the odds are that a one piece, rigid house will settle evenly? Plus, there are all the problems Edison faced-it is damned near impossible to fix plumbing and electrical when all the walls are super strong concrete.
Interesting question. Probably have to break it down to fibers and recombine it in a machine to form blocks or some other shape that can be mated together.
Love the idea. I have wanted a 3D printer for awhile now for fabrication of small items for personal projects... but a printer of this scale just is awesome! I foresee problems with people fighting their use though, especially in the USA, where large construction magnates would kill this idea!
Keep in mind, his talk discussed the financial infidelity of current construction methods, and how governments have already tried and failed to fund low cost or free housing in the past. Tech like this could easily help to catalyze such efforts. :3
love it. of course it might not happen in 2 years but with more re search and more engineering it can happen. imagine how good it is! ok jobs might be lost but they can go and work help building the machines to 3D print a house! a lot of thinking and work will be put into this im very sure if it is going to one day build or 3D print our houses!
Also, there's nothing wrong with a currency being privately created, just as long as there's competition. It's a monopoly in currency that we should be afraid of. We as consumers should have the freedom to choose which currency we want to trade with... Plus, if private competing currencies were legalized the currency organizations would have to give us a sound currency that doesn't depreciate in value because if it did depreciate, they would lose customers to their competitors.
Some of this computer-assisted construction is already happening in places like China (it doesn't look JUST like this, it's more for piece by piece wall construction). The biggest problem I see with the ubiquity of technology like this is that construction designs will shrink into the box of "things I can make with this" which isn't too far away from getting lazy and thereby dangerous because a more sturdily built house isn't buildable with the equipment.
Certainly there is a great deal more research that needs to be done with large-scaled 3D printing. However it is notably faster than prefab and almost certainly uses less materials. The technique is also best suited, not for straight walls, but for organic construction with curves, domes, and arches where the shape itself is inherently strong and reinforcement is far less of a concern. A prefab dome is expensive. But with 3D printing the cost of the straight wall and the dome are the same.
Thomas Edison pioneered a technique where prefabricated molds were setup and concrete was pumped into the forms, creating a very solid home in very little time -and it failed. The homes, once built, were nightmares to fix, as all the plumbing and much of the wiring went through solid concrete. When a normal house settles, it breaks up a bit and can be fixed by section. Not so with a one piece house.
But you have to admit, the new advancements of robotics, substantially reduces the need for human labor. Yes of course we still need the technicians, and the managers etc. But the core workload is almost nonexistent. Let's say that the man power needed to build a house averages to about 7, and it would take about roughly 6-7 months to complete. Transportation of materials is still needed, and technicians maintenance, etc. in the new system the ladder is all you'd need.
cool idea, but for starters we might try to utilize old shipping containers as homes. This things are incredible tough and versatile, and millions of them just lay around unwanted.
My love for disruptive technologies has been my life story. My father was a machinist for 34 yrs, making the same parts, over and over, day after day, mostly night shift. I have spent my life working with technology and computers, driven over a million miles visiting many companies and meeting great people, and never looked back with any regrets.
影片為2012 年， Behrokh Khoshnevis 在 TED 談論 Contour Crafting 全自動列印房子的原理。
羅馬不是一天造成的，但運用 3D 列印，一天就能打造擁有 10 間房子的村莊。3D 列印房子已經在上海張江高新青浦園區首先實現，值得一提的是每間房子建設費用不超過美金 5000 元（約台幣 14.9 萬元），超級便宜，也超級環保。
其中最大的一棟兩層建築身長 10 米、寬 6 米、高 4 米，大小已足夠一個 2 人小家庭居住。3D 列印房子的建築材料是回收建築垃圾所製成的特殊「油墨」，改良自水泥混合玻璃纖維的混凝土材料。列印房子是一體成形的過程，印表機會將混凝土「油墨」不斷噴灑到電腦建築設計圖對應的那些區域，皆從底部開始往上列印，油墨會在 24 小時固化，最終蓋好的房子還可以看到油墨層層疊加的痕跡。
這些建築是由上海盈創裝飾集團的超級 3D 列印機所整棟列印出來的，董事長馬義表示，早在2013年就發明了這台體積 150 m × 6.6m × 10m 的建築 3D 列印機，可以印出三樓層高的房子，未來準備大規模將建築垃圾轉換成 3D 列印的建築材料。中國房地產領頭羊、萬科公司董事會主席王石也宣布要加入 3D 列印房子的行列，更是 3D 列印應用至中國建築業的指標。 事實上，3D 列印建築早已在世界各地發燒。
2014年 1 月美國南加大工業與系統工程學系教授 Behrokh Khoshnevis 宣布研發出 3D 列印技術 Contour Crafting ，它能在 20 小時內蓋出一棟房子 ，目前已經成功在實驗室列印出一棟 1.8 公尺高的樓房，目前南加大也與美國航空總署 NASA 合作，思考未來在月球或火星蓋建築物的可能性。
在荷蘭，建築公司 Dus Architects 也正建築一棟擁有 13 個房間的運河房。Dus Architects 共同創辦人 Hedwig Heinsman 表示：「使用 3D 列印，零浪費，運輸成本下降，所有的物品都可以都溶解後回收利用」，徹底顛覆過去建築工業高汙染、無效率的作業流程。
未來列印自己的房子已不是夢想？南加大教授 Behrokh Khoshnevis 預估最快 2 年 3D 列印房子的技術就可以用於商業用途。不過，上海易居房地產研究院副院長楊紅旭指出， 3D 列印的房子是否安全穩固，是否經得起地震、天災的考驗？材料是否具有堅固、抗壓、抗震的特性，還需要反覆驗證。
個人列印房子短期內雖不會實現，但「自己的房子自己印」的夢想已經不遠了！
He's absolutely correct about the economics of this technology. The money saved in this process will go into other sectors of the economy. Typically sectors that improve the quality of life. Looking at auto's, despite lots of regulatory headwinds, robotics and advancements in tech has allowed them to create much better vehicles than just 10 years ago for relatively the same costs (inflation adjusted).
Great stuff... this technology needs to address Maslows Heirachy- the Poor/needy FIRST then for those that follow on the list of needs. Ultimately once everyone that needs a home and shelter has it then the focus can be turned to other business making ventures. Sadly patents and greedy corporate elitists take technologies like this and use them for their own benefit and not for the benefit of humanity. Glad this info is out, reaching the public!
I admire your cognitive input.
Unless Samareh pays for the low cost housing out of her own pocket, you must be smoking some good weed! Socialist countries can not exist on planet earth!!!
...Schools could be likewise built into these housing projects, hospitals, universities...everything required to train, employ and take care of a populace from conception into old age. This development in construction is an extraordinarily positive step and such a huge opportunity to right so many global wrongs.
Just heard a talk from Prof Khoshnevis at my university. The idea of doing this is quite a revolution but honestly I don't think it's that's far away. And to the constrcutuction of taller/bigger structures it's actually possible to attach the "printer" to the structure and continue building from there.
That's addressed at 11:00. It's also a rather short-sighted sentiment; the advent of mass-produced automobiles didn't result in a net labor loss due to the obsolescence of horse carriages, it generated an entirely new industry's worth of employment. Likewise, a system like this would generate opportunities in supply & materials management, architectural design, machine design & maintenance, materials R&D, and still have plenty of skill manual labor jobs left over for surveying, finishing, etc.
"It just makes sense!" - Khoshevis
If only the world did things that made sense...
this is revolutionary because you can house 365 families or single people within one year per machine. You can create robust and active towns, cities, educational opportunities. Plus, no trees need to be cut. It uses earth materials which is environmentally friendly approach to building. In america, every suburban house is built on wood, which degrades and has a very short lifespan. We can essentially build, move, and than rebuild and even the so called civilized world can live in dignity.
This is no doubt going to be the future and the world will be better with this technology.
Hell yeeeeeeahhhhhh!!! This is the beginning of the end of exploitation, and desperation. My only fear is that when the poorest of the poor are well off enough - the extremely wealthy will not be able to exploit them. This leads to a sort of unease in these exceptionally wealthy - and a temptation to undermine these types of efforts.
But seriously, thank you to anyone who devotes their life to decrease suffering. Engineers, healthcare workers, philosophers and even some politicians. You ROCK!
This is what makes me excited about living; being able to see the beauty, and the joy, of the future!
as to insulation, a high R value spray foam can be injected into the hollow space in the walls. in addition, once built, if further insulation was needed, the interior of the home could be framed in the traditional manner and extra layers of insulation could be installed.
2,500 sq foot house in 20 hrs wonderful !
I really hope this vision will come to reality soon & mass produced. Think of the millions of homeless people who are living in poverty. If city developers build well planned 3D printed houses and cities for the masses - think of the enormous savings on property / housing prices for the people.
The reason why we need a day job is because 30-40% of our salary is paid for housing loans. Hence, if 3D printed cities are well developed, price of houses can be reduced (but this requires great political will). Then, all of us will no longer be a slave to the banks paying mortgages for 30-40 years of our lives while working 10-12 hours a day (or more). Reduction in mortgage loan payment for an average household will mean MORE savings for education,healthcare, retirement and other expenses. Therefore, a loss of job (if any) would lead to less hardship for a household as you are paying less mortgage which is the biggest expense for any household.
As a result, we no longer need to fear the loss of jobs in the property sector as less resources is required to pay monthly mortgages for an average family and other jobs will continually be created in other sectors in future.
pat raj The technology is actively used - in real life construction - in China. They printed some emergency housing and more recently a multi-family house.
I think this technology is a way to make concrete construction much more affordable and usable instead of painful form work to cast concrete in place or heavy prefab elements that have to be transported by truck. Since the printer can in principle build any form, it will be up to engineers to find out if some form will hold up. The Iraninan builders were in fact much advanced: they used earth quake proof design already in the Middle Ages: most Iranian domes - the beautiful colored domes - are earthquake proof! They are all built as double shells so they have shear webs between the two shells. The technique of building domed hallways and rooms with at least one wall that goes up bit higher so the arched bricks can be leaned on it so the construction won't need any scaffolding, is ingenious and extremely beautify. The Iranians also developed the first gravity fed air-conditioning system with a tower that acts as wind scoop, guides the air down over a bed of rocks or water to cool the air and draws it into the living room by means of a domed roof with a hole in the center - completely simple and ingenious. They didn't whine about lack of work places from not needing wood structures. They created other jobs which society needed.
I think that every technology has its enemies initially as yes, it will require rethinking and retooling and retraining workers for other jobs, but that problem existed many times and was overcome (think of coal fired locomotives, taken over by Diesel and electric. Think of horse drawn carriages taken over by self conducted cars. Think of coal mines taken over by oil wells. Think of brick layers overtaken by steel buildings and prefab wall panels. It takes retraining of workers, but there will be other jobs arising from eliminating some construction jobs. Not all jobs can be eliminated, as these printed houses also need windows and doors! which may still have to be hung by hand. But casting concrete isn't really such a great job and if the machine can do it, all the better. Besides, concrete needs no painting. How great - no flaking paint!
Brigitte Meier Assuming you're talking about WinSun, the company that made 10 homes in 24 hours, Khoshnevis actually has explained that they have copied his design. CEO Ma Yihe of WinSun actually visited Khoshnevis years ago in his lab and learned much about his process. Then Yihe turned around and started his own printing. Contour Crafting can be traced back to 1996, with Khoshnevis.
Nate Moore I think it's a stretch to say WinSun has copied his design, they are quite different. Khoshnevis is talking about a 3D printer to build entire houses, WinSun is essentially printing pieces which are transported and assembled on-site, modular in other words. Khoshnevis is talking about a portable light-weight printer, WinSun is using a huge fixed printer in a factory, it's 6.6m x 10m x 40m. Khoshnevis's idea for CC is much more complex and but will be amazing if he can get the funding and build the machine. WinSun is essentially using a much simpler model in the meantime. Happy that someone's doing it though!
Though there is a question of space. You cannot just expect people to build with free will because if everyone done it our planet would inevitably run out of space.
Oh, I completely understand that much.
My best friend is a plumber by trade, and he loves this idea. He hates having to go to Home Depot to try to find that specific pipe fitting or elbow joint and have to make do with something else because what he needs isn't in stock.
Plastic retaining bracket broke? Replacement is impossible? 3D Printing to the rescue! I've had this problem with PCs. I had a standoff for a motherboard break, forcing me to jury rig something to avoid an electrical short.
This should be the most famous video on youtube.
Totally agree. There's a book that address these problems. "The robots will steal your job, but it's ok" by F. Pistono you can see his talk on TedxVienna
We need people like you to motivate scientist to show you how it is done!
In a sense, particle board is "printed" wood, only instead of being jet sprayed layer by layer, it is compressed, board by board. It doesn't look like conventional wood because it is made for price and strength, not looks. But it has to be mentioned that printing something is not the same as growing something, even though they are kind of similar. When they "print" organs, they are actually printing a scaffold on which cells attach and grow.
This will not decrease the cost of building. I am a concrete contractor and know the industry rather well. Like when paving machines came out and can lay roads 10 times faster than manual labor. However, material costs will "suprisingly" go up accordingly and the "laborers" will turn into concrete plant operators or raw material distributors. So this will not put people out of work or make it less expensive to build. It will just have good quality control, thats all.
A few things I wanted to figure out are :
if something like a pipe bursts or a electirical fault occurs and you have to take down the wall, how do you go about repairing it, since the wall was designed by using a injection system. Would you just do it the normal way or have to get other special equipment to repair it?
I love the idea of this, it turns everyone in the building industry into potential designers, you may lose the bricklayer but instead he would be the man who monitors the machine.
A building inspection would be necessary. Any number of unexpected circumstances could arise. The equipment would obviously need to be maintained and each batch of concrete tested which would happen prior to the building commencing, however environmental factors could come into play (rain, wind, bird flies into wet concrete), plus there is still room for human error as the machine would need to be set up on perfectly level ground of equal height at both sides or hoisted if the block wasn't flat.
This is brilliant. This is the future.
Great technology. It will save on hurricanes, insurance, building permits, bad architecture will vanish, themed neighborhoods will reappear, perhaps old New York, a new Roman empire themed city with replicas of Rome's grand imperial buildings, this is the best tech I have heard of in years....
lol really nice idea :)
I like this. Imagine cheap, affordable, structurally sound, AND lovely little homes in places like Haiti, Ne Orleans, anywhere semi-permanent, longer-term housing was needed! No more cramped trailers, no litter strewn campgrounds! I see a great future for this. I'm a little skeptical about the plumbing, wiring being automatic, but even if they can't be auto-installed, I'm sure it'll still be cheaper!
Do not fear change, embrace it; for it is with change we have gotten this far....
I don't see it as a problem at all. Requisite support structures can be printed at the same time as the permanent structure. A temporary column can be printed along the inside of a dome. A buttress can be printed on the outside of a wall as the wall itself is growing. Keep in mind that this technique is very much more like coil pot construction than brick laying, so surprisingly little support is required anyway. Google "3D filament printers" for examples of the same technique done with plastic.
As soon as I have learned about 3D printers I have been thinking how something like that could be used to print houses. It is really good to see that someone has already made progress on that field and I believe that house printing is future.
*Sign me up.*
The Printer That Can Print A 2,500 Square Foot House In 20 Hours.
We have seen huge advancements in 3D printing. We’ve even seen oversized wrenches printed that measure 1.2 meters in length. Now, we can print an entire 2,500 sqft house in 20 hours.
In the TED Talk video, Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), demonstrates automated construction, using 3D printers to build an entire house in 20 hours.
In manufacturing we use a process called CAD/CAM (computer-aided design / computer-aided manufacturing). 3D models are designed on a computer and then manufactured using CNC Machines or 3D printers. The design is manufactured into a physical object automatically, with instruction from 3D computer model to physical object without human interface. Automated construction basically scales up this process. The size of the 3D printer is large enough to construct walls by depositing concrete based material layer upon layer to build a wall.
www.contourcrafting.org
#futuretech. #constructiontechnology. #contourcrafting.
За бассейном стоял белый домик, такой же обтекаемый и почти
бесформенный, как Институт времени. Коля, когда они подошли поближе, увидел,
что стена вся в мелких порах, словно пенистая. Отец у Коли строитель,
поэтому он всегда интересуется строительными материалами и немного в них
разбирается.
An awesome advancement with obvious potential. Get excited or get out of the way.
I mean I loved Movie Criticism 101, Astronomy 101, Military Science 101... all those 101 classes were always fun. The actual knowledge that is useful to me, and that I make money off of because other people don't know, all of that came from boring, monotonous, sometimes painful classes, where even more than a year of blood sweat & tears was rewarded with an 'A' or 'B'.... thats just me though. Charisma in a prof is one who will stay an extra office hours just to help you with a concept.
The animation showed the addition of supports for window and door openings. It's easy to also factor in the automatic installation of windows. I suspect either way there will always need to be a final walk through and touchups by a human, but it's a massive step forward.
Great that you have made/found a working example as well as having an idea. Doing has so much more benefit than thinking alone. :)
Mass effect in reality. I'm psyched.
you forget that this creates jobs as well. such a printer needs maintenance, and supervision is needed as well to search for imperfections in the building, making sure the printer isn't making any mistakes and the building materials have good quiality. also, this technology creates new opportunities which creates new jobs, space colonies is just an example.
No, it's not a conspiracy theory. The Teamsters are the leadership of the unions in the USA and Canada. They influence the workers that would otherwise be doing the construction. Their website is teamster.org if you want to see more about their organization..
The wet cement is strong enough to stand on it's own until it's dried. Also, there are additives that can make concrete set up in just a manner of minutes, instead of hours.
Source : I work with concrete.
Adapt or die. No one is allowed to stand in the way of progress. Even if your life and the lives of a couple million others are thrown in to disarray, this technology and others like it benefits millions if not billions.
They'll still be needed for maintenance, retrofitting, complex projects, and likely design.
Actually, now that I've finished watching, forget what I said- He shows the thing working!
Practically, this system won't have "minimal human involvement." For efficiency and quality control, you're still going to have a crew of guys for each machine feeding it concrete, transporting materials to the build site, double-checking its measurements, pre-install testing the house's electrical systems, and making sure the equipment doesn't break, clog, or go apeshit and flood an in-progress apartment with slurry. This isn't a colossal step away from modern crane-based prefab construction.
That may not strictly be true: skilled workers will still be needed for maintenance. New designs will benefit from skilled workers. Complex projects will still be built (perhaps even more often). There are regions with a limited construction season yet still there are still workers and projects - I'm not convinced those workers are migratory or unemployed for large segments of the year.
He's just saying it'll allow for a more diverse workforce than just the current status quo of strong men. You're right about there being more people able to work in the sector, but the point is that the amount of resources society devotes to construction could be greatly reduced. This will free up workers to focus on other areas, and a lot of people will get good housing who previously could not afford it.
aw yis, tens of thousands of people that can then afford a home. What's better, knowing that someone out there who you don't know, still has a job as a plumber, or knowing that you can afford to keep your own family safe, dry and warm.
I agree, and that is why we create rules and structures and governance to create a fairer world. I still have hope.
Absolutely amazing! This is the future. Design you own house on your computer (or use a creative commons model from the internet), hire a 3d-printing company and order your creation.
As an engineer, I am so excited by the opportunity to FULLY design my own home!
I had this exact idea years ago, it sure is a brilliant concept.
In the near future we will "print" out whole city systems after being customized, simulated and approved by the local community!
I am proud to be Perian like you. Thanks for your job and knowlige
The problem with using Hemp is that one would have to grow the hemp, first.
The demand for hemp would skyrocket, and the amount of arable land available for growing would be insufficient (given that more land is needed to grow food, not to mention the increasing demand for corn-based ethanol).
Utter and complete mind blown RIGHT THERE.
I wish this guy the best of luck. We can finally get good housing for the poor with this, and they can pull themselves up.
Imagine designing your own house in a Sims-like program and then having it built for you by the end of the weekend.
That's like saying every time you scan and print a document, you need to scientifically examine each new printed piece, to make sure it's exactly the same.
Machines have an exponentially lower error rate compared to humans. And machines don't grow tired, bored, lazy, greedy, wasteful, unreliable, etc. "It's not the tool, it's how you use it"
They are not currently available for purchase commercially, from what I can tell.
Design and build one at home. It is really a juiced up rep-rap or makerbot machine that uses concrete rather than plastic, or sugar or icing.
We need set of transition based plans to get the ball rolling.
There's some groups already out there: Open Source Ecology, The Venus Project, etc. A progressive technology that can feed millions of starving people is C.F.S( Cybernated Farm Systems), CEO is Douglas Mallette, there's a lecture he did in Oslo Norway which explains a lot of the general plan and ideas.
Como gerar uma vida melhor mais sofisticada, barata e com mais gente passando fome!!!! Este é o futuro!
the presentation and the comments are lively. While acknowledging the problems cited for this invention can also be tackled in another way. My approach is to provide better tool which will curtail waste and increase productivity of the construction worker. My approach benefits construction worker as he will earn more and also benefit the investors as they will spend less
This is BRILLIANCE!!!
That's fine. You can get a job maintaining the equipment, designing the software, transporting the equipment, maintaining the buildings after assembly etc. If you're incapable of performing those sort of tasks, it's no ones fault but your own. In addition, construction is a skilled labour, you need years of experience and education to work in construction. You don't just walk in to construction jobs from the street.
For the next day hundred years, there will still be conventional construction jobs in most of the industrialized world. We simply are not going to tear down all the existing housing and replace them using this or similar technology. All of the existing homes will need maintenance and remodeling. The construction trades for new construction will hopefully evolve into something like we saw but it will never replace the traditional tradesmen in my lifetime.
Here's what you can do. Make these machines that build houses and build large tracts of zero energy homes or net positive homes. Rent them out to get a huge return. When you die, give them away for free to randomly selected needy families.
inspiring comment.
Getting planning permission for a couple of acres of land can increase its value by more then 1000%.
What would you think would have been a better way to present it? To me just the idea itself makes it exciting.
durned character limit
A phrase above should have read "those bandannas are *not* THE ONE Jimi hendrix wore at Woodstock."
Hendrix's bandanna probably gets traded for Paul McCartney's original draft of "Yesterday" or something like that. So yeah, there's still a market for very special items which remain scarce, but nobody goes hungry or lacks shelter or really anything else BUT the special item. Machines grow the apples, and they make bandannas in the Hendrix style. And that's good enough.
Fantastic! I'll share here in Mexico City vía TEDxDF ...and perfect timing for May 3rd's Mexican commemorative holiday for construction workers. :-)
It truly does make sense. I can't wait to see these homes in places like nicaragua & haiti & here in the states 2 replace mobile homes.
Consumption is only one half of the equation. In order to consume, things must be produced. In simple terms, if everyone eats apples, but no one grows them, pretty soon there won't be any apples for anyone.
Great job professor!! See you in class tomorrow.
it's amusing that you're grasping for those numbers when he lists them in the video you just finished watching
Also if you listen to the whole video he does cover the concerns raised by the "reduction" of job opportunities due to it's use over conventional manual labor.
dude. we're living in it. just look around.
I literally clapped for him in my house.
Remember when they said that CD's would be much cheaper because of reduced production costs? Remember MP3's? Remember all those other technical improvements that would make things cheaper? It just doesn't happen. The people who own the technology will always use the price-to-alternative method. As long as it will create value in the high margin applications, it will not be used for third world situations.
Most foundations crack. The reason the rest of the house doesn't is because there is some give between the different portions of the house, and when a wall does crack, the problem is more or less isolated. What do you think the odds are that a one piece, rigid house will settle evenly? Plus, there are all the problems Edison faced-it is damned near impossible to fix plumbing and electrical when all the walls are super strong concrete.
Interesting question. Probably have to break it down to fibers and recombine it in a machine to form blocks or some other shape that can be mated together.
Love the idea. I have wanted a 3D printer for awhile now for fabrication of small items for personal projects... but a printer of this scale just is awesome! I foresee problems with people fighting their use though, especially in the USA, where large construction magnates would kill this idea!
To those stating jobs may be lost to this technology. Yes, lets keep our current way of building and forget all about progress.
Finally on RUclips!!!
2 more years to go for my Civil Engineering degree. Would be cool to work with one of these in the future.
Keep in mind, his talk discussed the financial infidelity of current construction methods, and how governments have already tried and failed to fund low cost or free housing in the past. Tech like this could easily help to catalyze such efforts. :3
I wasn't bored at all. Also I heard plenty of variety of pitches emanating from his vocal chords.
it is a good thing to make jobs redundant - you don't live to work, you work to live, when thing are cheap it's easier to live even without job
love it. of course it might not happen in 2 years but with more re search and more engineering it can happen. imagine how good it is! ok jobs might be lost but they can go and work help building the machines to 3D print a house! a lot of thinking and work will be put into this im very sure if it is going to one day build or 3D print our houses!
Also, there's nothing wrong with a currency being privately created, just as long as there's competition. It's a monopoly in currency that we should be afraid of.
We as consumers should have the freedom to choose which currency we want to trade with... Plus, if private competing currencies were legalized the currency organizations would have to give us a sound currency that doesn't depreciate in value because if it did depreciate, they would lose customers to their competitors.
it is... its called a "builder", there is also a more advanced version in techit that will probably find its way into tekkit soon now that 1.3 is out
Because you can't be a bully with kindness.
Some of this computer-assisted construction is already happening in places like China (it doesn't look JUST like this, it's more for piece by piece wall construction). The biggest problem I see with the ubiquity of technology like this is that construction designs will shrink into the box of "things I can make with this" which isn't too far away from getting lazy and thereby dangerous because a more sturdily built house isn't buildable with the equipment.
the favorite thing i learned in 2012...
This is a very cool technology, I hope to see it soon.
Transcribed subtitles are doing good in this video!
everything evolves and nothing stays the same. As the market evolves so will JOBS evolve as well.
Certainly there is a great deal more research that needs to be done with large-scaled 3D printing. However it is notably faster than prefab and almost certainly uses less materials. The technique is also best suited, not for straight walls, but for organic construction with curves, domes, and arches where the shape itself is inherently strong and reinforcement is far less of a concern. A prefab dome is expensive. But with 3D printing the cost of the straight wall and the dome are the same.
that is the most amazing and very important technology that I ever seen!
Thomas Edison pioneered a technique where prefabricated molds were setup and concrete was pumped into the forms, creating a very solid home in very little time -and it failed. The homes, once built, were nightmares to fix, as all the plumbing and much of the wiring went through solid concrete. When a normal house settles, it breaks up a bit and can be fixed by section. Not so with a one piece house.
But you have to admit, the new advancements of robotics, substantially reduces the need for human labor. Yes of course we still need the technicians, and the managers etc. But the core workload is almost nonexistent. Let's say that the man power needed to build a house averages to about 7, and it would take about roughly 6-7 months to complete. Transportation of materials is still needed, and technicians maintenance, etc.
in the new system the ladder is all you'd need.
cool idea, but for starters we might try to utilize old shipping containers as homes. This things are incredible tough and versatile, and millions of them just lay around unwanted.