3D printers are great at creating small objects – and some can even be pressed into doing larger things, such as cars – but a 3D printer able to print a full-sized house would have to be, well, bigger than a house. To tackle this problem, a team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in Barcelona removed the size restrictions of a printer altogether by using mobile 3D printer robots to print directly on site.
Though other structures have been printed in 3D – such as low-cost housing in China – these are produced piecemeal off site and have to be transported. This is where the IAAC concept is unique; it 3D prints structures in one continuous process, so that a building can be formed layer by layer in place.
via Gizmag
