3D Printhuset, a Danish 3D printing company, has created the first 3D printed building in Europe. The Building on Demand or BOD is a 3D printed office-hotel stated to be Europe’s first inhabitable 3D printed building. The project started in September of last year but was almost completed just two months later.
“Not counting the hours and days where the printer was standing still awaiting other problems to be solved, it only took the planned 50 hours to do the printing of the walls…” said Jakob Jorgensen, 3D Printhuset’s CTO.
3D Printhuset started out as a simple 3D printing retailer and rapid prototyping service provider when they first started breaking ground on BOD. Though the project was met with scepticism by the rest of the construction industry Henrik LUnd-Nielson, the director of 3D Printhuset, expressed his hopes for the building saying “the BOD will be an effective demonstration project that can inspire others to continue and apply 3D print technology to buildings.”
The walls and the flat roof of the office hotel will be printed by 3D Printhuset’s own 3D printer using strong and sustainable printable cement that is produced using recycled bricks and sand. The BOD is less than 50 square meters and will have no straight walls. Only the windows and doors will have straight elements, even the foundation is a non-straight shape. An unusual foundation like this doesn’t come without its problems though, which is precisely why The BOD building will not only have 3D printed walls, but part of the foundation will be printed as well.
(Image provided by 3D Printhuset)
On November 30, 3D Printhuset will hold a conference to discuss the experience of the project in detail. What went wrong, what went right, and why. It will be the largest 3D printing construction conference ever held with over 240 attendees from the leading construction companies around the world and 15 speakers.
“We were planning to be complete with the whole building and all installations on November 30, but that is no longer realistic,” Lund-Nielsen said, “However, we have actually progressed so much that the attendees will be able to inspect the result of the application of the 3D printing technology, and then it matters less that the building has not been painted, is still missing a kitchen, toilet and other sanitary installations. We welcome all and look forward to sharing our results of this demonstration project.”
(Images provided by 3D Printhuset)