Houses Via Printer

It looks like the printer is getting another big upgrade. I’m talking Gutenberg level genius design. Behrokh Khoshnevis, a University of Southern California engineer, and some colleagues have begun developing a 3D printer for houses. To be fair, this isn’t really a “printer” per se. The system, called Contour Crafting, will shout out layers of concrete for a building from the bottom up.

Caterpillar, the company responsible for all that heavy equipment at construction sites and not the lovable creature that enjoys candy corn from A Bugs Life, is sponsoring the project. The technology will allow builders to put together a house, or a group of homes, with everything in place on the first pass through. All conduits for electrical and plumbing will be embedded right in the house. The hope is that these houses will be affordable for lower income families, or for emergency situations like hurricane Katrina.

The boys on the task also feel that Contour Crafting is one of the most feasible ways to establish human colonies on the Moon or Mars.