When I see 3D printing construction compared to precast modules I simply don't see a future where printing a whole building is price or labor saving.
As seen in other environments, 3D printing lets anyone design and build for their own use case. People are not all about practicality, they want to like their environment too and being able to bring up your house exactly the way you like it is great.
That may be the case but fundamentally buildings are built to a code, which uses a design pattern (GoF book is literally inspired by architecture), so is repeatable. Customers will ask for bespoke features but none of that scales or even requires 3D printing. And the inventors, so far, are trying to woo investors by suggesting this tech is cheaper than traditional construction and/or scalable. And it so far it hasn't addressed any of that.
If you’ve watched a house, or any structure, go up, you know that building the basic structure happens remarkably quickly. This seems to replace framing, roofing and siding. Maybe drywall too?
But you still have all of the expensive/slow stuff like plumbing, electrical and finish carpentry that still has to be done.
I did some research on modular construction recently to use in a talk about modular software design. This tech is getting really cool!
You can nowadays get hotel modules that are full pre-built suites. Comes with all the plumbing, electricals, even furniture. Bed and everything already bolted into place. You just lift it to your hotel’s superstructure, plug in a water pipe, an electric connection, and a sewage connection. Boom. New suite added.
I’m sure similarly pre-fab modular family homes exist. We have the tech, question is whether we have the demand.
They've existed for longer than I've been alive, and they're called "mobile homes" - but they have a bad reputation.
Actually, sorry, I'm wrong - they're not modular in the way you describe.
It was actually super impressive. Once the site was prepped it went together in the space of a few weeks.
I've also seen this done where the walls were cast concrete using molds placed on the large and flat foundation floor. Still went up alarmingly fast. It does make me wonder if similar balloon techniques are worth re-visiting for domestic architecture. Either way, it's amusing to see such a rapid construction technique used to warehouse and bootstrap a completely different rapid construction technique.
> Majority of the project time was leveling, compacting, and foundation.
And drainage. It's amazing how much time and construction effort goes into "make water go down the hole".