3D printed concrete houses in Eindhoven habitable next year
Mobile printers that can print a house naturally already existed but in Eindhoven last week it was announced that there was a scoop in the new neighborhood Meerhoven: the first concrete-printed and fully inhabitable houses in the world. Project Milestone is called the cooperation of the municipality, the TUe and a number of construction companies.
Boulders
The shape of the houses is crazy: the design is based on boulders and that is precisely one of the advantages of 3D printing of houses: you are no longer tied to traditional forms. You also need less concrete, because in order to keep a construction straight you actually need much less concrete than is now being poured everywhere. Another advantage of 3D printing is of course that you can immediately print other materials such as insulation. Watertight concrete is used for the pipes and on the outside dirt-repellent concrete can be used to keep the façade clean. Super convenient, at least as long as you never or never intend to grow, because that will be difficult.
Apparently, families have already signed up to live in the separate houses, but the big question is who wants to live in the first of five, because it is no different to say that everybody likes to be in the fifth , ‘best’ made house wants to sit. Perhaps the price will make a lot of money, but the way in which this project is set aside as an outdoor opportunity to live in a beautiful environment seems indicative of a relatively high price level.
It will be rented houses, which is probably a sensible choice, because with this kind of innovative techniques, something can go wrong in the long term. So you have to be experimental to live here, because everything is different in such a house. In the beginning of 2019, the first resident should get the key, so we will soon see how the experiment goes.