Reimagining Construction to Address Cost of Living

Back to Basics & First Principles With Fully Integrated Construction

Whereas in the past the construction process for buildings involved locally sourced materials and construction knowledge, thanks to industrialisation we have moved away from this to the current state where we have a building industry that involves thousands of different kinds of materials, processes & trades leading to the construction of a completed building. The result is an abundance of choice, a level of finish, inclusions and amenities that those living in the past would find hard to believe.

A reconstructed settlement of circular houses in mud, brick and stone near the original Neolithic (pre-pottery) archaeological site - Khirokitia Cyprus 9000 - 6000 BC

All of this progress however has come at a cost, literally, with the cost of a finished building such as a home now at a point where it is becoming increasingly unaffordable and therefore out of reach of a growing number of people. A number of approaches therefore have been adopted in order to tackle this issue, with various levels of progress to date.

Current Approaches

Volume Building Construction

Currently the most common approach to reducing construction cost is to adopt standardised building designs and construction processes, as well as the bulk purchase of building materials in order to provide completed similarly designed buildings at a reduced cost. Volume building construction tends to focus most on new residential buildings (i.e. new multi-apartment buildings, as well as single dwellings) where there is a large enough market to build at scale. Despite the above efficiencies, the volume construction approach still utilises relatively traditional building materials and trades and therefore still vulnerable to some of the same cost increase issues that can plague the rest of the construction industry.

Pre-Fabricated Construction

An alternative approach to tackling this issue is with pre-fabricated construction, aiming to bring the benefits of mass production to the construction industry in order to lower costs and improve the quality of the end result in the same way that we currently enjoy with the manufacture of everyday goods.

An example of pre-fabricated construction built by the home builder Cover

3D Printed Construction

Yet another way forward is to adopt additive manufacturing (i.e. 3D printing) as part of the building process. Currently this has been mostly confined to the construction of the walls of a building, with all the other major components of the construction process using conventional construction methods. In this way the majority of the traditional construction processes remain in place, limiting the potential to reduce the overall building construction cost in a significant way.

House Zero utilising a concrete wall printing system by Lake|Flato Architects & ICON

One Process Construction Via Multi Material 3D Printing - A Dead End Or A Better Approach?

Building on the above approach is to take the process of 3D printing to the maximum extent possible, with all aspects of the construction of a building completed in this way in order to maximise the chance to bring about genuine change; especially in terms of a reduction in cost.

By attempting to reduce the thousands of processes currently involved with traditional construction down to as few as possible via multi-material 3D printing, it may be possible to achieve for the construction industry the same level of cost reduction, flexibility and performance optimisation as currently observed with its introduction within the manufacturing industry.

An overview of just some of the many processes currently involved in the traditional construction of a building that may be superseded by the introduction of additive manufacturing (3D printing)

An example of how 3D printing has already within the manufacturing industry eliminated numerous processes, labour & inspection steps leading to much needed associated cost reduction & efficiency - additive manufacturing for the SpaceX Raptor rocket engine

In addition, given the significant volume of material needed for the construction of buildings, it is critically important that 3D printing for the construction industry takes advantage of both locally sourced materials, local knowledge and locally available energy to power the process where available and in this way be as sustainable as possible.

A source of inspiration for this approach is the art project Solar Sinter which sets an incredibly high bar for strictly relying on local materials, knowledge and power to achieve the 3D printing of objects

A glass bowl using only the power of the sun, the local desert sand & the knowledge of its maker to produce via 3D printing - Solar Sinter by Markus Kayser

• Past - Locally sourced materials and construction knowledge

• Present - Internationally sourced materials and fabrication with local final assembly/ construction

• Future - Fully Integrated Construction (i.e. one process production of walls, floors, roof, doors, windows, plumbing & electrical) via multi-material 3D printing using locally sourced raw materials, knowledge and power where possible

One process construction via multi-material 3D printing will need to meet the following criteria in order to be considered a success:

• feasibility (technically possible)

• time (can be built within a reasonable time period)

• cost (significant reduction in the cost of construction)

Road Map & Timeframe

1) Small Scale Feasibility Prototypes Using Multiple Materials & 3D Printed As One Piece:

It is important that the very first prototypes are made using a readily available 3D printing process and commercially available materials in order to quickly identify basic issues with the overall approach as well as the specific design and mechanics of the various prototypes made (i.e. using our existing Bambu Lab X1 Carbon multi-material 3D printer which is capable of 256MM X 256MM X 256MM maximum size structures and via the use of off the shelf filament). Once the basics in terms of the performance of the various sectional parts are understood, our larger MODIX 120X 3D printer, capable of 1200MM X 600MM X 640MM maximum build volume printing can be used to produce larger multi-material feasibility sectional prototypes.

• Wall section with integrated electrical & plumbing (i.e. electrically conducting filament in place of wiring, stone/clay/soil based filament in place of wall material, void areas for plumbing)

Critical decisions to be made:

Choice of wall material

_ Recycled construction waste (e.g. Francofil 1.75mm crushed brick waste + PLA filament)

_ Recycled biomass waste (e.g. hemp + upcycled/ recycled PLA filament)

_ Recycled plastic waste (e.g. 100% upcycled/ recycled PLA filament)

Structural design & performance of wall

_ Thermally broken (to be determined based on the main wall material choice above).

_ Insulation (in the form of air gaps or the use of an infill material layer)

Choice of electrical material

_ Electrically conductive filament (e.g. Multi3D conductive PLA filament)

• Power/Light switch section with integrated wall or floor section

• Door section with integrated hinges, lock & wall section

Completed 1:1 scale 3D printed sectional prototype study of a wall and door junction. The two parts were printed at the same time out of crushed brick waste as well as using a stone powder external finish. Drawing inspiration from the design of the human shoulder joint, the need for a separate hinge is eliminated by incorporating a simplified "ball and socket" type joint at the very junction of the wall and door itself. This is an example of how the fact that both the wall and door are constructed (printed) at the same time now allows for a more direct relationship to be possible with the design of both the wall and door in order to achieve the required mechanical function. From a design point of view we now have a highly integrated and therefore visually simplified design and from a construction cost perspective there is now a single building process replacing the traditional brickwork, mortar, cement render, door jamb, hinges, door, paint and all the associated manufacturing and labour to build and fit all these parts together.

Completed 1:1 scale 3D printed sectional prototype study of a door, handle and latch mechanism. The various parts were printed simultaneously out of recycled crushed brick waste, stone powder external finish and in this case brass was used for the fully integrated door handle and latch. A key obstacle to overcome was the conflicting requirements of the need to both allow for independent parts within the door to enable the required mechanical function (i.e. the handle and latch), while at the same time still allowing for a continuous one-piece, single process printing of the door, handle and latch to be possible. The solution was to incorporate small tabs that connect the door handle and latch to the rest of the door and therefore allow for the required one process printing to occur, yet upon completion of the printing allow the very first end user of the door to simply press slighlty harder on the handle when attempting to use the door in order to break the tabs away and in this way completely free the handle and latch as an independently functioning mechanism within the door.

Another key problem that was solved is the need for the mechanical function of the handle and latch to be robust enough that it will allow for its likely continued use within the structure of the door without failure. A source of inspiration is the way that skeletal muscle within the body evenly distributes contraction and retraction forces throughout its mass of fibers to enable movement. The mechanical design of the door handle and latch allows for contraction and retraction forces to be evenly distributed within a large "springing mass" attached just behind the door handle and in this way distributes the forces involved evenly over a large surface area and volume, greatly eliminating the likelihood of a single localised point of failure in the overall mechanism.

• Window section with integrated opening mechanism, glazing panel & wall section

  Floor section with integrated flooring panels, structural frame & footing/ground anchoring

• Roof section with integrated drainage, ceiling and wall junction section

• Lighting with integrated wall or ceiling section & electrical (i.e. electrically conducting filament in place of wiring).

• Wash basin with integrated, tap, plumbing & wall section

• Toilet with integrated plumbing, floor and wall section

• Shower with integrated plumbing, drainage and tapware

• Storage cupboard with integrated door panels, hinges and wall section

• Loose furniture (i.e. standalone furniture such as a table, chairs etc)

  
  
  
  

2) Single Space Full Scale Prototype

• Integration of the feasibility prototype sections as a functioning whole

• Determine impact of weathering and use

• Explore the architectural freedom afforded by the integrated single step construction

3) Multi Space Full Scale Prototype

• Development of software capable of integrating the one step construction process with flexible design to meet the needs of individual project sites