Bio-inspired 3D Printing Could be Affordable Housing’s Future

Amid the orchards of Massa Lombarda, Italian innovators remixed ancient building materials with modern architectural 3D printing to create a prototype home for a greener future. Using locally-sourced clay and biomaterials, building the TECLA habitat takes a fraction of the time and generates dramatically fewer carbon emissions than traditional new house construction. But this is not a 3D-printed version of your standard tract home. The TECLA habitat has a curved, organic structure that only a 3D printer can produce

Printing Homes Like a Wasp

WASP is an Italian startup dedicated to building what it calls “zero-mile” homes. By using locally-sourced materials, solar-powered printers could disrupt the economics of residential construction. To print a “healthy, beautiful and human-scale home” with little cost, WASP took inspiration from the potter wasp, an insect that uses clay to build nests for its young. “

Today we have the knowledge to build with no impact in a simple click,” WASP’s founder, Massimo Moretti, said. “We build 3D printed houses using earth found on the spot, under a sustainable perspective. The oldest material and a state of the art technology merge to give new hope to the world.”

WASP’s latest product is the Crane WASP, an infinite 3D printing system for building affordable housing. Of course, this is not your traditional desktop 3D printer:

Print volume: 6.3-meter diameter print area and 3-meter height Minimum layer height:
9 mm Maximum printing speed: 300 mm/s
Maximum travel speed: 500 mm/s
Acceleration: 20 mm/s2
Nozzle diameter: from 18 to 30 mm

Architects using Rhino 3D modeling software can generate gcode for the Crane WASP using the Grasshopper plugin. The printer can use clay, concrete mortar, geopolymers, and other materials to extrude walls and infill.

3D Printing Houses for Earth

Moretti’s company partnered with Italian architect Mario Cucinella to demonstrate the Crane WASP’s potential for making Earth-friendly housing. TECLA, a portmanteau of “TEChnology” and “CLAy”, was the result. This dual-dome structure provides 60 square meters (645 square feet) of living space. One dome serves as the living area and the other as the sleeping area. Both are capped with skylights to give the house a natural, open feel.

Extruding a mix of clay from a local river and rice husks, two Crane WASPs printed the dual-dome structure’s self-supporting walls. From start to finish, the house took 200 hours to print while only consuming 60 cubic meters of raw materials and 6 kW of energy.

But TECLA is more a prototype than a finished product. As Cucinella explained, “The completion of the structure is an important milestone.” Studies are underway to evaluate TECLA’s structural and thermal behavior. But the design, and the technology enabling it, is promising. Earth-based 3D printing could help alleviate the global housing crisis without contributing to climate change.

“We like to think that TECLA is the beginning of a new story,” Cucinella said. “It would be truly extraordinary to shape the future by transforming this ancient material with the technologies we have available today.”