JOIN USThe Chinese company Win-Sun Decoration Design Engineering has once again made waves in the global building and construction industry by creating a stand-alone villa and six-storey residential house with a giant 3D printer.
The structures, unveiled at the Suzhou Industrial Park in China’s Jiangsu Province, were produced piece by piece with an offsite machine measuring seven metres tall, 10 metres wide and 40 metres long.
Recycled building materials were used as feedstock, and included concrete, fibreglass, sand and a hardening agent. A specially formulated ink was chosen because it is flexible, resistant to strong earthquakes, and self-insulating.
Being fabricated offsite with a diagonal reinforced print pattern, the structural components and walls were shipped in and pieced together onsite. The team then placed beam columns, steel rebar and insulation within the walls, reserving space for pipelines, windows and doors.
According to the WinSun company, 3D printing helps save 60 per cent of materials, 70 per cent of time and 80 per cent of the labour, that would typically be required when building a home.
The Chinese company made international headlines last year when it 3D-printed 10 houses in just 24 hours, at a cost of $4,800 for each house. It holds 98 Chinese patents for construction materials, and first developed a nozzle for 3D printing of buildings in 2004-05.