The process is widely seen as more environmentally friendly using 32% less building material than traditional methods, says Professor Jeffrey Mahachi. Screengrab: africanews
South Africa’s very first 3D-printed home is here! The structure was built by the University of Johannesburg's (UJ) Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Built Environment in partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlements and AfriSam, with funding support from the National Department of Science and Innovation.
702 Radio’s John Maytham interviewed Professor Jeffrey Mahachi, head of the School of Civil Engineering & the Built Environment at UJ who elaborated that “the 3D printer only prints the shell of the house, which can be completed in 24 hours, depending on the size of the structure.”
According to 3DSourced, a one-stop information centre for all things 3D printing, the concept has been used since the 1980s but, due to it being a massively expensive endeavour, it was only used for highly specialised niche projects, usually by universities and government research departments.
Then, throughout the 2010s, 3D-printing technology has improved rapidly, making it extraordinarily cheaper to own a 3D-printing machine at home. The university's giant 3D-printing machine is worth a cool R6 million.
The first residential structure constructed using 3D printing construction technology was a home in Yaroslavl, Russia, with an area of 298.5 square metres. The walls of the building were printed by the company SPECAVIA in December 2015.
Mahachi told 702 Radio that “the time frame also depends on whether plumbing and electrical wiring is installed during the printing process, or at a later stage.”
The printing process is not as complicated as one may think, Prof Mahachi compared it to printing out a document.
“Have you ever printed a Word document before? So the way you print your Word document, what you see is what you get,” he said.
Walking listeners through the process, Mahachi explained that it begins with an architectural or engineering drawing on the computer and once that design is approved, it is sent to the 3D-printing robot which begins “printing” using a cement-like “ink.”
In an interview with Africa News, Mahachi said that the process is widely seen as more environmentally friendly using 32% less building material than traditional methods.
Printed layer by layer as if piping icing on a cake, the 6-room house took less than 24 hours to complete. These structures can be used as RDP housing, as the cost of construction falls within the government's R200 000 threshold for low-cost housing.
The government has indicated that 3D-printed housing forms part of our National Development Strategy to establish sustainable human settlements and support economic recovery.
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