The 3D printer that can build a house in 24

hours

The University of Southern California is testing a giant 3D printer that could

be used to build a whole house in under 24 hours.
Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has designed the giant robot that replaces
construction workers with a nozzle on a gantry, this squirts out concrete and
can quickly build a home according to a computer pattern. It is basically
scaling up 3D printing to the scale of building, says Khoshnevis. The
technology, known as Contour Crafting, could revolutionise the construction
industry.
The affordable home?
Contour Crafting could slash the cost of home-owning, making it possible for millions of displaced
people to get on the property ladder. It could even be used in disaster relief areas to build emergency
and replacement housing. For example, after an event such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines,

which has displaced almost 600,000 people, Contour Crafting could be used to build replacement
homes quickly.
It could be used to create high-quality shelter for people currently living in desperate conditions. At
the dawn of the 21st century [slums] are the condition of shelter for nearly one billion people in our
world, says Khoshnevis, These buildings are breeding grounds for disease a problem of
conventional construction which is slow, labour intensive and inefficient.
As Khoshnevis points out, if you look around you pretty much everything is made automatically these
days your shoes, your clothes, home appliances, your car. The only thing that is still built by hand
are these buildings.
How does Contour Crafting work?
The Contour Crafting system is a robot that by automates age-old tools normally used by hand. These
are wielded by a robotic gantry that builds a three-dimensional object.
Ultimately it would work like this, says Brad Lemley from Discover Magazine. On a cleared and
leveled site, workers would lay down two rails a few feet further apart than the eventual building's
width and a computer-controlled contour crafter would take over from there. A gantry-type crane with
a hanging nozzle and a components-placing arm would travel along the rails. The nozzle would spit
out concrete in layers to create hollow walls, and then fill in the walls with additional concrete
humans would hang doors and insert windows.
Its a CAD/CAM solution, says Khoshnevis. The buildings are designed on computer and built by a
computer. Contour Crafting hopes to generate entire neighbourhoods built at a fraction of the cost,
in a fraction of the time, far more safely, and with architectural flexibility that is unprecedented.
The Contour Crafting solution also produces much stronger structures than traditional building
methods. According to Contour Crafting the tested wall is a 10,000PSI (pounds per square inch)
strength compared to an average of 3,000PSI for a regular wall.
The system could potentially be used to build large office blocks and even tower blocks. You can
have multi-nozzle machines and even have the structure climb the building, says Khoshnevis. says
Khoshnevis. This animation demonstrates how a home is built using the Contour Crafting technique.
Will all future buildings look the same?
One concern with contour crafted homes is that theyd all look the same. Mind-numbing duplication
was a key criticism of the suburban estates from the 1950s, even though they also brought goodquality housing to millions of people. Would robot-made homes have the same problem, spitting out
endless duplication of the same basic template?
They would not be as homogenous as the suburbs, says Khoshnevis, because every [Contour Crafted]
building can be different. They do not have to look like track houses because all you have to do is
change a computer program to get a completely different house.
Because the buildings are printed with a nozzle, they can also be far more creative than current
constructions. The walls can be curved says Khoshnevis and you can have very exotic architectural
features without incurring additional costs.
Will builders be out of work?

What the implications are for builders is, of course, a major concern. Building and construction has
largely escaped the construction line automation of other industries and remains solid employment for
millions worldwide. According to the International Labour Organisation construction employs nearly
110 million people worldwide and plays a major role in combating the high levels of unemployment
and in absorbing surplus labour from the rural areas.
Thats a lot of people Contour Crafting could make redundant, which raises the question of whether
the system could do more harm than good.
There is concern about people being put out of construction jobs, says Khoshnevis but the reality is
that a lot of new jobs can be created in this sector as well. Khoshnevis reminds us that in 1900 almost
62% of all Americans were farmers, whereas today less than 1.5% of Americans are in agriculture,
thanks to advanced in technology. The same will be true in the case of construction. Khoshnevis
argues that Construction is a hazardous job and points out that it is more dangerous than mining
and agriculture.it is more dangerous than mining and agriculture. It kills 10,000 people every year
[and] because of all the different trade and managements structures, the process is pretty corruption
prone. It is very costly and always over budget.
When will we see robotic builders?
But can the Contour Crafting robot move from its research lab environment and into the real world?
Khoshnevis is a prolific inventor, says Brad Lemley, who emigrated from Iran in 1974 and holds
patents in fields ranging from optics to robotics, [and] decided there had to be a better way while
trowelling plaster cracks in his living room following the 1994 Northridge California earthquake."
If you can build a wall, you can build a house, says Khoshnevis. But Contour Crafting was named
one of the 25 best inventions in 2006 by the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the History
Channels Modern Marvels programme and is still being tested.
Current research is being funded by Nasa along with the Cal-Earth institute. The future development
for Contour Crafting is to investigate construction of modern civil structures, alongside the
construction of structures on the moon. According to Contour Crafting these structures include landing
pads, roads, hangers and radiation walls.
Nasas Desert Research and Technology Studies (D-RATS) facility is investigating infrastructure
elements in order to evaluate the feasibility of adapting and using the Contour Crafting technology for
extraterrestrial application.
This technology is like a rock that we have rolled to the top of a cliff, Khoshnevis told Discover
Magazine, just one little push and the idea will roll along on its own."