Recently, Amsterdam architectures got to contructing the first house around the globe, completely printed on 3D printers. The project is said to be completed in 3 years and take much money. Meanwhile, a Shanghai company WinSun has announced that it has already printed 10 houses from cheap factory waste in little less than a day. Why the difference in cost and time is so crucial?

First of all, the resolution of printing plays a key role. In both projects industrial 3D printers are used. The Shanghai printer is 150 m long, 10 m width and 6 m depth. Instead of plastic, the Chinese use a concrete aggregate “made in part from recycled construction waste, industrial waste, and tailings. Every house of this material costs less than $5000.

The difference between the two projects lays also in the technology of printing. In Amsterdam every room and detail of furniture is printed “in one piece”. WinSun prints the elements of construction first and only than they are assembled together at the building ground. That’s why some critics say that such houses couldn’t be technically named printed.

Though, it is still very fast and chip technology. According to the WinSun company, the houses built under it are for the impoverished and displaced, a big issue in some cities in China.

All images are courtesy of www.3ders.org