Dive Brief:
- A Chinese company with a mega-sized 3-D printer cranked out enough building blocks of recycled materials mixed with concrete to build 10 small homes in a day.
- Suzhou Yingchuang Science and Trade Development Co., Ltd., based in Suzhou, used a printer that is 22 feet tall, 33 feet wide and 105 feet long.
- The blocks have built-in diagonal reinforcing and air space that reduces weight and add insulating value.
Dive Insight:
The 10 boxes made from from blocks for the project were put into use as offices in Shanghai. The nozzle of the printer looks something like a giant cake-frosting nozzle as it follows around and around a pattern, laying layers of, in this case, a glass and concrete mixture.