Digitally Fabricated Homes: Revolutionizing Sustainable Construction

As designers, it has always been a dream to transform our visions and ideas into reality. The design has now transcended 2D drawings and 3D digital models into a tangible visualization process facilitated by digital fabrication technologies, enabling us to materialize our concepts with unprecedented precision and creativity. 

What is Digital Fabrication? 

Digital Fabrication is a manufacturing process reliant on machines as a manufacturing tool, guided by computer-based design. The design’s digital instructions are transferred to the machine, which automates the production process. Digital fabrication is an efficient method to test unique geometries and forms, reduce material consumption, and increase speed and precision in design. It has also been used to test design ideas at a smaller scale before execution. 

Digital fabrication is not limited to small-scale projects; it is envisioned as a sustainable construction method. From structural elements to even houses, digital fabrication has proved to be a potential solution to cater to the world’s increasing demand. 

What are digitally fabricated homes, and how are they built?

In response to urbanization, disaster relief, and housing crises, many research universities and labs have attempted to explore ways to utilize digital fabrication technologies in house and shelter construction, pushing construction innovation to a new level.

Digitally fabricated homes are functional dwellings that cater to human needs. Their construction is reliant on industrial-sized digital fabrication machines such as 3D printers. In the case of 3D printers, one of the most famous digital fabrication methods, a process referred to as “additive manufacturing,” is utilized, where the home is gradually constructed with an industrial 3D printer which adds one small layer over another.  

This article will explore some examples of digitally fabricated homes to understand the potential and future of digital fabrication technologies in housing solutions. 

WASP’s TECLA Project

TECLA, constructed in Massa Lombarda, Italy, represents one of 3D printing’s innovative creations. The eco-habitat follows a circular housing model with its building materials derived from raw earth, ensuring a recyclable structure. The name TECLA, which comes from the words technology and clay, represents the sustainability of the project, which is designed to be carbon-neutral and adaptable to varying contexts and climates. 

The collaboration between Mario Cucinella Architects and WASP was groundbreaking due to the introduction of a modular Crane 3D printing system suitable for industrial use. As the world’s first 3D-printed eco-habitat, the system was designed with carefully crafted sustainable goals ranging from reduced material and energy consumption to high-performance and durable construction. TECLA adopts a double-dome concept for the structure, ensuring long-term effectivity and efficiency. 

One of the remarkable achievements of this project is its rapid construction, which lasted only 200 hours and utilized 60 cubic meters of material. This form of eco-housing reflects the potential of 3D printing and digital construction in achieving a more scalable, replicable, and sustainable built environment. 

Apis Cor’s 3D Printed House

Apis Cor is one of Russia’s pioneers in 3D printing technology. Apis Cor designed and constructed Russia’s first fully 3D-printed house in Stupino, Moscow. Built using a transportable 3D printer and an automated mobile mix and supply unit, this 38 m² single-story residential house represents the potential of additive manufacturing, being the first-ever housing project printed in one piece. The process, completed in a ground-breaking 24 hours, underlines the efficiency and flexibility of digital fabrication methods.

The innovative design, with futuristic curved walls, was selected to showcase the versatility of the equipment. Construction had to overcome difficult weather conditions, with the team setting up a controlled environment to maintain ideal concrete printing temperatures.

The house integrates modern comforts, including a functional kitchen and state-of-the-art Samsung appliances, such as a curved-screen TV matching the house’s wall curvature. Considering its premium quality and unique design, the construction cost was only $10,134, with significant savings on wall construction materials and resources compared to traditional methods. 

A Digitally Fabricated House for New Orleans

The digitally fabricated house for New Orleans, designed to resemble a traditional shotgun house, is a CAD and CNC fabricated house by MIT’s Lawrence Sass for MoMA’s Home Delivery Exhibition in 2008. While the house was designed for exhibition purposes rather than a housing project, its construction process was challenging, requiring 5,000 plywood pieces to be assembled and interlocked with friction without the usage of any other components. 

This digital fabrication technique made ornamentation and traditional architectural details achievable without compromising the use of technology. The components of the house were carefully modeled using CAD software and then cut by CNC machinery. The accuracy of the model ensured that the pieces would fit perfectly and hold on to one another, ensuring the durability of the structure without the need for major on-site interventions. Such a method, like the aforementioned examples, also ensured a significant reduction in material waste. An additional advantage of this method is its potential to integrate smaller-scale community manufacturing shops or labs in the production of a house’s “pieces”, paving the way to a participatory design process in the housing industry.

As the exhibit was more of a prototype, it lacked waterproofing and other elements that turned it into a completely functional house; however, the structure was able to resist wind and rain during the exhibit period, which lasted 4 months. This reflects that this housing model could eventually evolve into a more scalable housing solution, especially for disaster-prone regions. One disadvantage of the method is its excessive reliance on CAD modelers to design the pieces one by one digitally. However, with modern-day technological development, new rising methods could potentially solve this problem, eventually facilitating the execution of CNC-based fabrication techniques.

Digital fabrication techniques in housing construction are a rising sustainable solution that ensures efficiency, speed, and material reduction. While digital fabrication holds a lot of potential, its proliferation is hindered by architects’ and engineers’ lack of sufficient knowledge in the field. This means that educational curricula must integrate digital fabrication technology into their programs and courses to ensure the development of digital fabrication as a sustainable construction method.

If you are interested in delving into the world of digital fabrication, you are highly encouraged to check out PAAcademy’s upcoming EcoFusion: Robotic Manufacturing workshop. 

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