3D Printing of Houses - the future?

[NancyGormezano]

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[robcat2075]

I wonder about the disruptive effect of this. A key part of our economy is people employed to build houses. What happens when they are unemployed?

 

20 hours to built a house? Wasn't Jimmy Carter building houses in a day?

 

At one house per day it will take 68,000 of these machines working for 10 years to build homes for 250,000,000 families.

[Simon Edmondson]

An interesting presentation of a possibly good technology but, its more than a bit utopian in outlook. This is perhaps not the space for the discussion but, the opening point about the slums states the effects but doesn't look at the causes. Nobody chooses to live like that, they do so because they can't afford to do otherwise. In the countries were those slums exist it is not because the skills don't exist to build adequate accommodation, they do. Its the funding to pay for it that is unavailable.

 

What he is describing essentially is an updating of the prefrabrication processes used to build houses in Europe after WWII. The difference is that the fabrication happens on site and is controlled by Robots. The technology would make more sense in an economically highly developed area in the building of multi storey blocks of offices or accommodation because they could afford the technology and the technicians involved. It seems more like a high tech, costly response to a low tech, affordable, question ?

regards

simon

[John Bigboote]

I love the idea... there would still be many, many people involved in this process- just less 'crooked' contractors. The non-rectilinear idea is wonderful, but I think this may catch on faster in other parts of the world rather than the U.S.

[NancyGormezano]

this may catch on faster in other parts of the world rather than the U.S.

 

Will probably catch on faster in other parts of the Universe! These guys are working with NASA to build houses/structures with robots on the moon and beyond. Imagine the technical hurdles working with wet concrete in zero to low level gravity conditions! What could go wrong?

[higginsdj]

I wonder about the disruptive effect of this. A key part of our economy is people employed to build houses. What happens when they are unemployed?

 

20 hours to built a house? Wasn't Jimmy Carter building houses in a day?

 

At one house per day it will take 68,000 of these machines working for 10 years to build homes for 250,000,000 families.

 

All well and good for economies where the cost of housing is cheap. Here in Australia, owning your own house is a dream that more than 50% of the population will never achieve. Base house price here is around $300,000 (1 bedroom). Cost of housing has exploded due to demand on limited supply of skilled labour so methods of significantly reducing this cost are needed. As the presenter suggested, this technology will not replace the existing building market overnight - as with the advent of modernised agriculture, the 'world will not come to an end'. 68,000 of these machines is actually a small and realistic number.

 

Cheers

[Gerry]

I was under the impression that this was already being done. I thought I'd seen a video of 3D printing of houses sometime last year, but anyway...

 

I do agree with Simon that the presenter sort of glosses over the reasons that these slums exist in the first place. It's not construction technology that's the problem, it's political will. The idea that a new technology will solve the problems of poverty is a little too simpleminded.

 

But I suppose that if building these machines would line the right pockets it could be done!

[Roger]

This is cool but I suspect might not be practical?

Poverty is a tough nut to crack. We can't seem to fully

employ everyone as it is. And the long-term trend is towards more

automation requiring less labor, not more. I really

don't know what the solution is.

[robcat2075]

If you plop down a bunch of suburban-style houses you're going to need the suburban style infrastructure to accommodate them... water, sewers, roads, electricity, an expanded police force and fire dept... and somehow the poor in these houses will need to make enough money to pay the taxes to support that infrastructure or they will be labeled as "takers"

 

Yes, the problem is complicated.

[Gerry]

Yes, good point about the infrastructure. Once they can 3D-print sewer lines and a power grid, problem solved!

 

EDIT: the poverty issue aside, 3D printing of houses is brilliant. It's just not a solution to poverty.

[NancyGormezano]

Yes Gerry. Videos for this technology (contour crafting) have been on Youtube since at least 2006 (I just became aware of it, however). I don't believe this guy is minimizing the social, political problems to be conquered. However, the technology part is the easy part.

 

I also believe he is more inclined to see this method in use for developing nations like China & India with huge and ever expanding populations. They are not so entrenched in existing methods, taxation of the poor, and are more open to finding fast, newer, novel solutions. They are already building extensive highrises, housing developments en masse, just not fast enough to meet demand.

 

I also believe he sees it for it's potential for emergency housing after typhoons, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.

[robcat2075]

How does this situation happen, that people are living in a dump?

 

I suppose it's a sign that the population has outgrown the ability of the economy to include everyone in a conventional manner, and yet there is enough waste in the economy that some people can subsist on it.

 

In a way, the economy is big enough to feed all these people but much of the buying power is over-allocated to people who can buy more than they need and then redistribute that to those with no buying power by throwing it away.

 

I'm not sure my Economics 101 class addressed this functioning of the market economy.

[Ilidrake]

Poverty has and always will be part of the human condition. I mean consider the fact that even if a job is available some people are just too lazy to take it. They are more than comfortable living off of the working class. I could go on about the cycle but it's like poverty. Never ending...

[Simon Edmondson]

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the_im...ATeoX8.facebook

 

A friend posted this yesterday. Its a bit simplistic but makes its point well.

simon