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United States Technology

Florida Barn Will Be the World's Largest 3D-Printed Building (axios.com) 38

A luxury horse barn in Florida is primed to be the world's largest 3D-printed building. From a report: Once it's complete, the 3D-printed luxury equestrian barn in Wellington, Florida will overtake a building in Oman as the world's largest 3D-printed structure. According to Printed Farms, the Florida-based startup developing the project, the building will have a total floor area of 10,678 square feet. While the team finished the 3D-printing portion of the site build Wednesday, the installation of doors, windows, electrical fittings and other structural components is still needed.

Printed Farms founder Jim Ritter told Axios construction is expected to be finished by the end of August -- refuting other reports that the build was already completed. What they're saying: The climate case for 3D-printing buildings, according to Ritter, lies in waste reduction. "America is a very wasteful society. We have to start keeping things longer. Our clothing, our cars, everything. That's the whole point of a greener, more sustainable building system," said Ritter.

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Florida Barn Will Be the World's Largest 3D-Printed Building

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  • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday July 14, 2023 @03:43PM (#63686703)
    florida man.
    • I'd be more worried about hurricanes. Wellington is in the eastern part of the southern coast (just to the west of Palm Beach and North of Miami) of the Florida peninsula so it's eventually going to get hit by a hard storm.

      Unless they're storing a lot of bath salts in the barn, I don't think they need to fear Florida man. Or at least no more than usual, which for Florida may be slightly elevated.
  • How big is the printer?
  • They acknowledge the high CO2 footprint of the cement, which gives "same [CO2] impact as conventional building".

    Also the printed structures I've seen are real ugly. You can clearly see the extruded layers, it is unsightly.

    • What's the big deal? Will a build up of CO2 contribute to warming temperatures and rising sea levels? It's not like Florida has anything to worry about that.

    • by Chas ( 5144 )

      More ugly than a stucco finish? Not really.

      And the finish doesn't need to STAY the raw look.

      • More ugly than a stucco finish? Not really.
        And the finish doesn't need to STAY the raw look.

        Sure. You could stucco it.

        • by Chas ( 5144 )

          No, I'm saying that the striated concrete look is no uglier than stucco.

          And as I said, if you don't like the raw concrete look, there's nothing stopping someone from putting some sort of fascia (stucco, brick, tile, siding, etc) on.

          • Great, so you can pay and pay again. But more to the point, if you have to put a non-3d-printed fascia on your 3d-printed building to make it acceptable, what's the benefit of 3d printing? You're not getting away without a bunch of labor.

            It arguably would be better to make a machine that automates the production of adobe bricks. These days you can make bricks that fit together when they stack, much like Lego. Compressed earth blocks (as opposed to simple "puddled" ones just poured into typically-ladder-shap

            • by Chas ( 5144 )

              The point is this:
              You do not HAVE TO put ANYTHING on.

              The cheapest option is basically UV resistant paint and a natural finish.
              And, personally, I find no problem with that.
              It's no uglier than an adobe or cinder block home.

              On the interior, again, gives you a bare wall option or gives you the normal options, sheetrock, paneling, etc.

              https://www.iconbuild.com/ [iconbuild.com]

              You talk about "not getting away without a bunch of labor"
              Then go rattle on about automating adobe bricks.

              Look at what goes into making adobe.
              Simply, it d

              • You talk about "not getting away without a bunch of labor"
                Then go rattle on about automating adobe bricks.
                Look at what goes into making adobe.

                These days it's done with machines, whether manual or automated ones, and even the better manual ones can be used to make literally thousands of bricks per day with a couple of people.

  • Snide remarks about the competition doesn't disguise the fact Ritter's fugly building is made using energy intensive processes using non-renewable energy intensive materials.

    Why not use something renewable, like wood? What's the fear of natural materials that regrow while replenishing the environment?
  • the building will have a total floor area of 10,678 square feet

    While the team finished the 3D-printing portion of the site build Wednesday

    So the building already has a total floor area of 10,678 square feet. Not future tense.

  • Until quality control is found to be building-grade and fully internalizes the costs in estimates, it's just a gimmick. Promoters of 3D printed structures have been promising a revolution in construction for a long time, and it just never materializes. Now they're talking about a barn (just one) in Florida, like that would be an achievement over a decade after it started being touted as a solution to housing crises.
    • Not only that, but how do you maintain the structure?

      I personally think that modern framed and poured structures are the way to go. It is the result of a long history of humans building structures more efficiently with individual laborers, emphasizes maintainability, and sequesters carbon in wood, when applicable. That way, individual people can actually maintain the structure over time.

      • They're probably hoping that economies of scale will eventually overcome the cost of added maintenance complexity, but obviously that's very far down the road. The hype is still way out of proportion to immediate applications.

        It also ignores the industrial reality of actual printing (as in, ink on paper), which has tended to be monopolized to the detriment of consumers. I strongly doubt companies that print concrete will be less predatory and degenerate than ones that just squirt ink on to paper.
      • by Chas ( 5144 )

        Depends on what you mean by "maintain".

        https://youtu.be/Y-4S7cdo3tY [youtu.be]

    • by Chas ( 5144 )

      Some of the first demonstrators were 2-3 years ago, once most of the kinks were worked out with mortar mix and printer head technology.

      There's a development of 99 homes in a subdivision that're going in as we speak

      https://youtu.be/Y-4S7cdo3tY [youtu.be]

      So they've already been shown to be building-grade (in fact, they're a lot better than basic contractor grade homes).

      • Definitive statements about the quality or cost of a technological pilot project still under construction would not make sense yet. Prototypes only demonstrate a capability, and at best give some hints at the directionality of cost or quality... and that only long after they're finished and inhabited for a full maintenance cycle.

        Similar promises were made about "prefab" homes some decades ago, and all they did was fill the exurbs with unsafe, uncomfortable, ugly, uninsurable shitboxes that flood in a dr
        • by Chas ( 5144 )

          The homes in that subdivision are NOT "prototypes"

          And yes, a concrete home, with cavity fill of foam insulation is going to cost more.
          It's also not going to have the variability and weaknesses of stick framing.

          And concrete buildings are not some dark magic. It's a VERY well understood segment of the market.

          • Or "pilot project."

            Variability is not necessarily a disadvantage when talking about wooden structures. There's an evolutionary reason wood grain is moderately chaotic rather than being very orderly. Concrete does need to be orderly, but then all it's doing is comparing concrete printing to concrete pouring, not making an overall comparison of 3D printed construction to general construction.

            Every boundary between one of those print layers is a potential fault, and the greater design freedom they get
            • by Chas ( 5144 )

              Nobody's talking about this REPLACING anything.

              Or at least *I* am not.

              This is simply another option in the toolbox.

              • Well, they are talking about it replacing a lot of things. I'm expressing a note of skepticism.
                • by Chas ( 5144 )

                  What they're talking about replacing is nothing different from various solutions that already exist for concrete block, tilt up concrete panels and ICF.

                  Stuff that's been around over 20 years and is well understood.

                  This method simply requires less manual labor to achieve an end.

                  A more or less standard concrete slab of the proper pre-planned dimensions with threaded rebar dowels.
                  Set up the rig, and a couple people to monitor it and keep it fed with concrete.
                  It's about where in the process the cost savings are

                  • Yeah, that's my understanding. The hype is blown way out of proportion. Basically they're just talking about strategic improvements in process.
                    • by Chas ( 5144 )

                      Hell, the guy running the construction for that Austin subdivision runs a podcast talking SPECIFICALLY about lies and exaggeration in the printed space.

              • I do love the streamline moderne look that a lot of the 3D printed buildings have. I always loved that style.

"Once they go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department." -- Werner von Braun

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