Prefabrication experiments - 141 - visions of the future - 02 - printing buildings APIS COR

A remarkable and sophisticated history of construction can be conveyed through the study of unconventional building techniques conceived to speed up, streamline or simplify the building process. Robert G. Letourneau’s Tournalayer, a machine for casting houses or Thomas Edison’s continuous casting process are two such inventions that employed concrete’s malleability toward providing mass housing quickly and efficiently. Both systems used intricate moulds to form walls, floors, roofs and, in the case of the Tournalayer, integrated openings for services. 

Casting a house on site hypothetically make things easier as foundations, envelope and structure are produced in one monolithic form. Using this type of direct method reduces waste as accurate material quantities can be determined and consumed as needed. Further, today’s information technology could allow this type of cast to be numerically controlled with matter being deposited meticulously within a defined field of coordinates. 

Apis-Cor, an innovative start up company is complementing the extensive list of on-site casting inventions and has garnered our interest thanks to its innovative building printing machine. The company has to date produced one 38m² dwelling structure in a small Russian town. The Apis-cor printer can be easily transported and controlled on any site. Most large scale 3d printers that print buildings are either portal types or scaled up Delta versions. The Apis-cor is a moveable column crane that has a printing range of 132 m². The crane’s anchor point can be moved so as to produce larger structures.  Analogous to a computer controlled concrete pump, the printer’s nozzle is controlled to deposit a lightweight concrete mixture in horizontal strata of any shape. The company argues in favour of their lean construction process, which reduces material use and waste as material is mixed, generated and used on-site and as needed. A small mixing plant is located on site and material is transferred to the printing nozzle. A cellular truss matrix maximizes voids in the structure reducing both mass and volume. 

As was the case with other similar inventions, the efficient design to fabrication process rationalizes construction, however most other building systems remain conventional. Reducing the system entanglement synonomous with contemporary building culture needs to be fully addressed in order to achieve a synthesis of value, productivity, high quality, and functional adaptability.

From the Apis Cor website