Remote Indigenous Community Pioneers 3D-printed Homes Set To Change Rural Lives (theguardian.com) 74
maxcelcat writes: Indigenous Australians living in remote areas have had a housing crisis for decades now. One community is addressing this by having houses created by Luyten, printed with concrete, built in their settlement. Traditional housing construction a long way from major urban centres is extraordinarily expensive and complicated. Maintenance is also a huge issue, many plumbers, electricians etc. in northern Australia find having their own aircraft is the only way to get around. Which of course adds to the costs. Hopefully this turns out to be a workable solution.
A problem in search of a solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Now the site lack detail that I could find, but depending on how it is printed, it could real easy to run all that stuff while it is going up. Or a total pain in the ass.
Also, less total overall personal needed for building. Maybe not now, but in the future. Some cost saving there. Especially if labor is hard to come by or transport.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I've lived in A frames before, they were furnished with the bottom area against the wall used for storage.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. You pick up and move around a bag of cement the same way as you pick up a brick or a hollow block. With your hands, and up to around 25kg at a time. You load it on and off a truck the same way. With a crane or a forklift, and one pallet at a time. You break a bag of cement the same way as you you break a brick or a hollow block. You drop it on the ground.
What does not happen to a brick is that when you touch the bag of cement on to some corner while moving it, you break the seal on the bag. Once
I think you misread. (Score:2)
First up, I think that a "Fully functional" house isn't one where they just finished pouring the concrete, but one with utilities installed, ready to move into. Things like water, electricity, painted(maybe a mortar finish applied to smooth out any lines from the printing process), flooring, etc...
Next, I think that you're missing an important bit: Fresh concrete does not adhere to set concrete without special work and chemicals. As such, they very much don't want to stop while in the middle of a "pour"
Re: (Score:2)
You raise some valid points. I guess it could work if everything ran like clockwork. Me, personally, would be terrified to go near the fresh walls before they're set. Trip once and you fly through the wall, most probably pulling down half of the building.
Conduits in the wall would be nice. If you could easily pull cables and pipes into the walls after the fact, that would simplify things. I would not, however, trust the print with the holes for the sockets, switches and such. If something goes wrong, they a
Concrete isn't that fragile (Score:2)
You're "very unlikely" to go through the wall after it has had a day to cure. I've poured concrete semi-recently, and 8-12 hours is long enough to walk on it. Think about the pressure of a footstep, and how strong it has to be in order to not get so much as a footprint in it. It's about 3 days for cars or heavy equipment. Still, you might also be talking about the walls as they're still being printed, which causing major damage is unlikely, though they might have to cut out a section and reprint it. Or
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, my first thought is that 8 hours is time to clock off anyways, and it's a 3D printer. You shouldn't be anywhere near the print head/print site. Standard safety requirements for machinery, you keep it and humans from mixing.
The operator's job once it's set up and started printing is going to primarily be to make sure the concrete keeps coming.
Besides, like I said, you're more likely to stumble into the wall than through it. It's going to already be tougher than that.
Re: (Score:2)
You can watch them 3d print houses on TikTok. They don't stop between layers, it's a continuous print.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Bags of concrete/cement would be a lot easier to transport than finished bricks. Plus you would have to worry about them breaking. Cost savings
I take it you've never worked in construction before. Bricks are tough enough that there's a market for used ones recovered from building demolitions (some people think old bricks give new construction a "classy" look). And while any masonry can chip or break under the right circumstances, we've been building with brick and CMU's for a long time now. Which means we've been hauling them to construction sites without issue.
Re: (Score:3)
Getting closer to being a real solution. (Score:2)
Money, probably. Indigenous peoples rarely have much to throw around, and construction crews would rather work where the real money is (not to mention their families, evening entertainment options, etc.), which makes them far more expensive than they would be hired locally.
Ideally, almost all the mass of a 3D printed home comes from local sand and gravel, you only needed to ship in the cement binder (and not even that for 3D printed "adobe" cob)
And both the amount of time and skilled labor necessary for de
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Getting closer to being a real solution. (Score:1)
Lol !!!!! They're not paying for anything. You don't understand how it works in Australia. They're almost all on government benefits and the tax payer is funding all these activities. The aborigines have vastly more money spent on them than any other segment of the population. These houses will be paid for by everyone else.
At least being concrete they can't be destroyed overnight like the normal ones they get, I guess ? That's probably a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
What would have been so difficult about turning up with some trucks with bricks, concrete or lumber any time in the last 100 years and doing the same?
I know, it's a tradition here to read TFS and ignore TFA - I do that a lot myself. So I'll save you the trouble of clicking the link by providing this quote from the article: “We realised in Alice Springs that they have a problem. The current housing they have – brick and mortar – it doesn’t work when it comes to summer or winter. It’s just like an oven or a fridge. They needed walls that were half-a-metre wide, which is six bricks next to each other. Imagine the cost of that.
Re: (Score:2)
I love 3d printing but the amount of garbage PR about 3d printed houses is something to behold - that it can solve the world housing crisis, that it is faster than other techniques, that it even produces attractive houses. None of it is currently true and maybe
Re:A problem in search of a solution (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not how any of this works. If they need walls half a meter thick, why is that? Is that to insulate themselves from outside? Then you use insulation instead of brick. Is that so you have thermal mass to even out the temperature fluctuations? Then you must have the mass and the technology to create it does not matter one bit. Maybe you need ventilation, maybe you need wider eaves, maybe you need to define the actual requirements first. But if all you have is a hammer...
You know, this is basic civil engineering.
Also, cooling and heating the house. It's not just that modern construction has solved these problems in every climate. It's also that them being, you know, indigenous people, they will most definitely have solved these problems already thousands of years ago, using local skills, building materials and techniques. But you know, marketing says that we can use the bastards for virtue signalling...
Nothing to see here, people, move on.
Re: (Score:2)
It's also that them being, you know, indigenous people, they will most definitely have solved these problems already thousands of years ago, using local skills, building materials and techniques.
There are a number of problems with this actually:
1. Indigenous houses are no longer considered "good enough" for them in modern times. For one: No plumbing, no electricity, no lighting other than fire, etc...
2. The skills to make and maintain said indigenous houses have been lost in many cases, due to the decimation of the peoples involved.
3. They've lost access to the resources they often used to make them, due to environmental changes, due to environmental laws, etc... Indeed, in many cases the peop
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I am aware of the problems of the indigenous. But from these problems it does not arise that we should not try to look into past experience for problem solving.
Current construction methods have been optimized for commercial viability foremost, so I guess we will find out soon enough whether there is actual substance to it. Suitability for local climate has, at least in the West, been standardized through the use of local building codes. The code specifies whether and how much the house should have heat
Re: (Score:1)
You're not one of those "Noble Savage" types, are you ?
The Aborigines didn't build any form of house. They lived in caves, or pulled branches down and piled them against a tree trunk to create what's called a "lean to". In other words, the absolute bare minimum. The sort of stuff literal cavemen were doing 50,000 years ago.
No agriculture. No writing. Stone Age tools. No fabrics. No numerical systems. No animal husbandry. No farming. Not even stonemasonry. They did know how to make fire though.
You have liter
Re: (Score:2)
You're not one of those 'savage savages' type, are you? Because you seem to have the common dehumanizing viewpoint of an invading nation. I mean, if you are going to take their home, kill, subjugate and rob them, it helps if you convince yourself that they are not quite human. But google around a bit and you will find that indeed, the aborigines did build houses; indeed, they did more than the bare minimum. Yes, stone houses. Yes, farming. But most importantly, the fact that they do not rise to your arbitra
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I ran into this building concept many years ago. You start with a wall, draw an Inverted catenary arch on it, and lay up bricks against the wall following the arch. The advantage of this construction method is that it does not need any internal support, not even while you are building it. The structures are compression only, which is why some 3000-year-old structures in Nubia are still standing.
The construction angle along the vault to the ground is about 45 degas you can
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What would have been so difficult about turning up with some trucks with bricks, concrete or lumber any time in the last 100 years and doing the same?
Maybe it's more about the cost of labor than the materials.
Costs add up quickly when you have to fly a bunch of bricklayers around and pay their expenses.
Re: (Score:2)
"don't offer much over conventional methods "
The conventional method of needing lots of people and places for them to sleep and eat and somebody to cook for them for months?
The machine works 24/7 and doesn't eat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"On what planet does it require months to throw up some walls on a house?"
We're not talking about US ticky-tacky houses that blow away when a breeze comes.
The rest of the world uses bricks or concrete.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I gotta say,
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that you have to "turn up with some trucks with bricks" 2500 km from the nearest Home Depot, in the middle of the Outback. Having a device that can manufacture things from raw stock in situ instead does seem to be an improvement.
Cost (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the total cost per home versus being built by humans?
No it won't... (Score:2)
Did they 3D print the plumbing, electrical, and all the other fixtures? Because those are the actual difficult, costly, and time consuming part of home construction.
Re:No it won't... (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't if you sit in the dark and poop in your hand.
This is Australia we're talking about, not San Francisco.
Re: (Score:2)
I could see this being real easy for electrical stuff. It is a 3D printer so it prolly puts the space in the wall for a j-box for you. Just have to stick it in there. Have a pipe go into the ceiling. No more shitty romex. Pulling wire thru tubes was so much easier than romex. No more breaking blocks. MC in the ceiling, or depending on how you print it, somewhat fancy pipe work. Fuck romex.
Plumbing would be a bi
Re: (Score:2)
Did they 3D print the plumbing, electrical, and all the other fixtures? Because those are the actual difficult, costly, and time consuming part of home construction.
If the necessary raceways and attachment points are part of the printing job, a substantial amount of that labour is eliminated. Plus, those things tend to require smaller, less expensive tools, are easier to learn, and - with the exception of wiring and gas fitting - generally don't have as big a downside as structural work if they're done incorrectly.
We're used to thinking of that work as expensive because the labour for them costs a lot. I've done a fair amount of home reno work - plumbing, electrical, d
Re: (Score:2)
Did they 3D print the plumbing, electrical, and all the other fixtures?
Do you really think they have mains electricity and underground sewage systems out there in the outback?
Must Be Nice (Score:1)
many plumbers, electricians etc. in northern Australia find having their own aircraft is the only way to get around
And even plumbers can afford private aircraft? Nice...
Re: (Score:2)
many plumbers, electricians etc. in northern Australia find having their own aircraft is the only way to get around
And even plumbers can afford private aircraft? Nice...
Actually, they can't afford NOT to have them, any more than you can afford not to have transportation to work.
Correct if I'm wrong, but... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Concrete in the sense that modern society uses it is a noticeable amount (8% by quick search), but that's ALL concrete. So, while "significant", I'm not quite willing to give it the "huge" designation, and how much of that 8% is homes, and how much is things like - roads, bridges, dams, runways, etc...?
The problem with building out of mud is that it has drastically more maintenance requirements than concrete. Safety issues as well - it isn't as strong.
Re: (Score:2)
So, do you live in a mud hut, or a straw house? If not, why the hell do you expect ME to live in one. You first, or fuck off.
earth bags make more sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Fill burlap sacks with earth which is almost good enough for rammed earth, or better. Lay out the outlines of the walls. Run a line of barbed wire on top of it, cover with more sacks, repeat until you have walls. With forms you can make self-supporting domed roofs, or you could cover them with something else. Requires very little material to be brought in. You cover them with any kind of plaster (including just mud mixed with plant juice, I wonder if eucs would work) to protect the wall. The walls are crazy strong, hold up well even with seismic activity, being hit by a truck, whatever. And if you must "3d print" them then you can feed a machine a roll of burlap fabric, machine stitched as it is applied to a feed chute, and do continuous layers instead of using individual sacks.
Stronger than rammed earth, but with less labor, using mostly materials found almost everywhere, cool in the day, retains heat into the evening. No concrete required. No or little water required, definitely less than concrete.
Re: (Score:1)
Stronger than rammed earth
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you? Rammed earth is nearly as strong [sciencedirect.com] as concrete itself. It's normal to stabilize it with a small amount of portland cement. Then it's rammed down with pneumatic tampers. It's far stronger than bags of dirt: not even a close contest. I've actually built structures from rammed earth, tires, hay bales, CEB, integrated concrete forms, and other techniques. CEB machines would be cheaper and more accessible than some kind of 3D printing hardware, but not as sexy.
Re: (Score:2)
It's far stronger than bags of dirt: not even a close contest.
The soil compacts, so it behaves like rammed earth; but the barbed wire gives tensile strength that rammed earth lacks, making it far superior in a quake or when subjected to impact. Don't look it up or anything though. That would be terrible.
Re: (Score:1)
Don't look it up or anything though. That would be terrible.
Well, I don't need to. I have actual construction experience and I can tell by your "making it far superior" claim that you do not. Rebar and steel meshes are used to secure walls in seismically active areas, not "a line of barbed wire". A bit of barbed wire wouldn't be even close to adequate or meet any building standards in a dicey seismic area. The amount of pressure that bags of dirt stacked on top of each other can create isn't going to be nearly as strong or as durable as a pneumatic tamper over a mas
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I don't need to. I have actual construction experience and I can tell by your "making it far superior" claim that you do not. Rebar and steel meshes are used to secure walls in seismically active areas, not "a line of barbed wire".
Yes, you do need to look it up, because this has been tested and you have not even trace elements of a clue.
Re: (Score:1)
That sounds like it'd work, but... (Score:2)
While that sounds like it'd work, but I have to point out that it sounds like a very labor intensive way to build. And labor tend to be the most expensive part of anything.
With a concrete 3D printer, you come up with the printer, you hook a mixer up to the printer, then at least theoretically as long as everything is sufficiently automated one dude can manage the printing of all the walls of the house over a day or so.
With your system, you need somebody filling the bags, maybe with some sort of machine to
Re: (Score:2)
Barbed wire is used because it's available and cheap, but it actually does the job quite well. I've seen photos of walls that have survived quakes over mag 7, and walls that have been run into by trucks, just some of the surface plaster falls off.
Re: (Score:2)
It's still a lot of labor though, by the sounds of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Like I said, you can buy assorted different kinds of tube material which can be filled by a machine. But it can also be done with just human labor, and without needing any forms or fancy equipment, so it can be done by people pretty much anywhere if they can be hooked up with the material.
Re: there isn't a housing shortage.... (Score:2)
Re: there isn't a housing shortage.... (Score:2)
This is actually true. You have no idea until you see it. Friend of mine was an electrician in the 80's. His company would get juicy, juicy government contracts to install window rattler aircon units in the abo housing recently built. They'd do the job, bill the government insanely high, then come back a week or two later and reclaim the units the abos had kicked out of the walls to resell.
Freshly built free housing completely ruined (think worst parts Chicago ruined) in weeks. Completely trashed, all of th
Trailer anyone? (Score:2)
I can't help but imagine the cost of a semi towing a mobile home (i.e., a trailer home) is a bit less expensive than a semi towing out a house-printing 3D printer, setting it up, and towing it back.
At least the trailer home is a one-way trip.
And even most single-wide trailers have more living space than the homes mentioned.
waste of money (Score:2)
Like white people (Score:3)
Traditional housing ...
You mean European-style housing: This is one of the problems, telling indigenous people to live like white people, when they don't want to.
Re: (Score:1)
Traditional housing ...
You mean European-style housing: This is one of the problems, telling indigenous people to live like white people, when they don't want to.
Oh look, another white savior being offended on our behalf.
It's the modern age, we don't have a problem living in "traditional housing" and we only use the "old ways" for ceremonial purposes now.
FR though....F*ck off. When don't need you to be offended for us, we'll let you know.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that I'd go more for "European style houses are good for Europe." I don't care whether you're a native or a transplant, living in a home designed for the area is generally better.
Just sticking to the USA, a house in Alaska should be built differently than one in Arizona, which should be different than California, and Florida different to all of them.
Roughly speaking:
Alaskan homes should be designed to capture and retain heat as much as possible.
Arizona(desert) homes should be designed to mostly rej
Lo Tek (Score:2)
Lo - tech ( low and local ) is probably a better way to go for remote settlements in Australia.
More important is self sufficiency, training locals to fill trade needs
and sourcing sustainable materials locally.
Planning to collaborate (Score:2)