Student Architects Develop 3-D Concrete Method
Date Posted: January 25, 2016
Posted In: Ideas,
From ConstructionDive: A team of masters’ students, who call themselves “Amalgamma,” from the Bartlett School of Architecture, has developed a 3-D printing method for concrete, which enables the creation of structural elements and large furniture pieces, Dezeen Magazine reported.
In a year-long project called Fossilised, Amalgamma combined two existing 3-D methods, extrusion and powder printing, to create supported extrusions. The team built a table and a column in an attempt to demonstrate their ability to produce large-scale concrete structures.
Amalgamma extrudes ready-mix concrete from an industrial robotic arm layer by layer, laying it over a bed of granular support material, which is placed around the structure by a second toolhead on the same robotic arm, Dezeen reported. A binder used during extrusion hardens certain parts of the granular support, producing a multi-material piece that takes between six and 10 hours to complete.
In the past, the group says, concrete 3-D printing has produced straight, vertical forms, so one of their goals was to bring craftsmanship into the architectural design of the pieces, as well as develop printing methods that did not require a 3-D printer larger than the structure being built, Dezeen reported.
The team said this is no different than when traditional construction elements are manufactured elsewhere and then assembled on site. So while building an entire large-scale structure might be challenging currently, Amalgamma believes their method could be used to print floor-wall-ceiling assemblies or stair-floor-wall components in “one whole architectural chunk.”