WinSun’s 3D-printed villa has several rooms and has been deemed to be up to China’s national safety standards. (3ders.org)
When the word printing is associated with house, one might assume a 2 – dimensional plan, elevation or the cross – section of a building represented on a paper by means of architectural drawing. If that is what you are thinking, you must think again.
The exponential advancement the society witness in today’s technology blows ones mind. With every contemporary invention you seem to assume it can’t advance any further, fortunately, the reverse has always been the case.
The advent of 3 – dimensional printing also known as Additive process in the 1980’s created a slight shift in manufacturing process. It allows the construction of a 3 – dimensional solid object from a digital file. The 3 – dimensional printer uses materials laid down in their successive layers until the object is created.
Wiki house is an open source construction system founded by Alastair Parvin. With this system it possible to check on the internet and access an array of freely shared library of 3 – dimensional models, which one modify to suit their needs. The house can now be printed using a CNC machine and a sheet material.
Each of the parts has a unique number which identifies it, no bolts are required rather wedges and pegs are used. The material used is timber which guarantees longevity. However, quality of materials may vary by location.
One staggering feature of the wiki house is the procedure of assembly. The method is no more than the conventional way houses were built in the 19th and 20th century. It is a contemporary way of using old ideas and taking advantage of existing technology to eliminate the weaknesses of the old system and harness the opportunities in them.
Another benefit is the safe energy and environmental friendly nature of the house. It uses solar energy for electricity and an efficient sewage system.
The construction and assembly’s simplicity do not require any prior construction experience. It took a team several days to a week to complete the construction of a barn in Scotland. Another team of 12 ordinary people with no formal training or construction skills armed only with rubber mallets built a Wiki house prototype frame in a few hours. It is mind blowing how wiki house could be if it could be built within such amount of time. And this is the type of project we desire, timely efficient, cost effective and safe.
Read another story from us: Stages in Building the 3D printer
Architecture and building construction are taking an ultramodern dimension, what do the future hold? Are we no longer going to build houses using the old method which takes ages to complete or are we going to persist on experimenting with wiki house to observe how elastic the possibilities could be?