Maybe this the one time where it’s a good thing if you soil your project: there’s a way to 3D print houses out of raw earth!
In Ravenna, Italy, Mario Cucinella Architects has partnered with a 3D printing company called Wasp to develop a process called Tecla, a word that combines technology and clay.
Building a new house in the usual ways means bringing in materials from elsewhere, and that has a carbon footprint.
Instead, Tecla uses raw earth and other materials already there on the building site.
Multiple large 3D printers were able to construct a more than 600 square foot living space in 200 hours of work.
The end result sort of looks like a large beehive cave, a work of art as well as a practical living space.
There are other projects like this: the Emerging Objects studio in California just created Casa Covida, a living space for two that’s made of a 3D printed adobe-like material.
Plus it has an inflatable pink roof if it starts raining!
In both cases, designers are looking at how to make where we live greener but also more high-tech, and, above all, more livable.
And if we’re 3D printing houses on-site, maybe we can also 3D print furniture.
Then we won’t have to move couches.
If you want to see some of the world’s greatest pieces of art but can’t really travel to all of it, 3D printing can bring the art to you.
The open source museum Scan the World has over 18,000 3D digital scans of important works, which you can view online, or 3D print at home.
You could have your own Michaelangelo’s David.
YOLO, art lovers, YOLO.
This is the first house to be 3D printed from raw earth (It’s Nice That)
This 3D Printed House Is Made From A Mix Of Soil, Straw, Sand, And Other Sustainable Materials! (Yanko Design)
Download and 3D-Print 18,000 Artifacts from Art History through Scan the World (Colossal)
