3D printing infrastructural parts to make up a whole has been tried and tested and true, leaving little mystery behind the technology of 3D printing. Just when 3D printing was seemingly about to breach overexposure, however, a company called Contour Crafting (CC) debuted their own 3D printing technology- and it’s like nothing the construction industry has seen before.
While it may resemble other 3D printing technologies, Contour Crafting actually delivers an entirely exclusive aspect missing from similar technologies: the ability to 3D print an entire house in just under 24 hours on-site, complete with pre-embedded conduits for electrical, plumbing, and air conditioning. That means CC’s technology has the ability to 3D print basic necessities into the home during mid-construction.
Contour Crafting technology can automate the construction of whole structures, and can be used to fabricate a single home as well as a colony of homes. In other words, unlike other 3D printing companies who only print in parts, Contour Crafting prints entire structures. WinSun, for example, is a 3D printing company who prints parts of houses in a factory that are then wrapped and delivered to the construction site, where assembly is required upon delivery.
Contour Crafting is taking 3D printing technology to an entirely new level by bringing their printer on site for complete on-site assembly. Essentially, Contour Crafting is using a giant 3D printer to print residential and commercial buildings in one shot, no assembly required, with basic utilities already embedded into the structures. That is what makes Contour Crafting’s technology so unique and exciting; it is truly doing what no other 3D printer has done before.
Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, the creator of Contour Crafting, has been developing the unique printing method for over a decade, and is looking forward to integrating the technology into construction companies to change the way they work. CC’s printing technique can currently assemble structures at a rate of 20 seconds per square foot. With an averaged sized home typically being 2,500 square feet, it would take just 19 hours to complete a residential construction project, with a modest workforce of only four people.
And it is Dr. Koshnevis’ vision to apply his technology to commercial projects both big and small as well. He believes immediate infrastructural completion, where the printing process has been so simplified companies will actually be able to manufacture entire structures directly from the architecture CAD models, will benefit emergency, low-income, and commercial infrastructure projects at affordable costs for construction companies.
For example, towers, bridges, emergency shelters and even infrastructures such as water and sewage pipes could be printed in their entirety at a fraction of time and labor costs due to CC’s simplified, on-site, immediate printing process.
In fact, Contour Crafting is completely customizable, meaning that, due to the design of the printer, unique shapes like curves and smooth edges would be possible. Traditional 3D printers typically print square edges with little variety, but Contour Crafting would allow commercial buildings to be fully customizable and therefore more versatile depending upon their use, which would lend to the ability to 3D print pipes, tunnels, and other rounded commercial structures.
Contour Crafting also offers multiple ways to 3D print infrastructures, complete with different machines to get different jobs done. Each machine serves a different purpose and is capable of different functions, such as:
- Single Detached Residential Building- This can be done using the standard printing technology available.
- Large & Commercial Buildings- Is accomplished with a multi nozzle machine.
- Tall Skyscrapers- Can be accomplished with a machine that has the ability to climb buildings.
Because Contour Crafting is completely customizable, Dr. Koshnevis believes the technology would be preferable to conventional methods of building and would drastically reduce the amount of time it would take to construct such infrastructures.
Dr. Khoshnevis is eventually hoping to build entire neighborhoods at a fraction of the traditional cost and time. His ambitions should be anticipated soon, as he plans to introduce Contour Crafting to entry-level construction models on the market within one to two years.
And while we’re waiting to see the reception of such an advanced and expedited means of printing, Dr. Khoshnevis is also working with a research team at the University of Southern California in an attempt to utilize Contour Crafting in the construction of structures on the moon and Mars. While space may be CC’s final frontier, everyone will be anticipating how Contour Crafting will change the construction industry.
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