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I think this should be primarily interesting for buildings with special form which are hard or expensive to build with traditional methods. The price is not the
by orless 10y ago
I think this should be primarily interesting for buildings with special form which are hard or expensive to build with traditional methods. The price is not the selling point here, at least not in Russia. Russia has a lot of cheap labor from the southern ex-USSR countries like Tadjikistan. So $10k for 38qm is not really cheap. You can build a 150qm two-floor house for around $25k. Also $277 for the foundation seems a bit suspicious, should be much more expensive.
"the radius of curvature of the TV matches the house wall curvature" pretty much looks like a PR stunt for Samsung. I wonder if they've actually chosen curved walls to somehow justify curved TV.
- ghostly_s 10y agoYes, if those figures are converted to USD (I presume so as they're using the '$' sign without specification?), then they are so manipulated as to be worthless. There is no way to pour a foundation, even a small one, for $277. I agree the formal implications are the interesting aspect. Creating an exactly equivalent design, with curved walls everywhere, would be phenomenally expensive with conventional practices.
- astrodust 10y agoIt's actually astonishing how much good concrete costs. You can barely fling $20 bills off a stack as fast as the truck is pouring $20 worth of concrete into your foundation.
- brianwawok 10y agoI doubt a 10k house in Russia is "good" concrete.
- jacquesm 10y ago> Creating an exactly equivalent design, with curved walls everywhere, would be phenomenally expensive with conventional practices. You could easily make a house with round walls today if you wished to do so. But you wouldn't because you'd curse yourself every day when you want to place furniture and lay floor coverings. Curved spaces seem like a good idea until you actually try to use them.
- taneq 10y agoHell, even non-square spaces (or spaces composed of non-right angles) are a pain in the ass to effectively use. My old place had a main living area with a few 45 degree angles, and it really limited what you could do with it unless you were willing to lose several square meters of floor space.
- lostboys67 10y agoAs our local swimming pool built in the shape of a pyramid found out - they had to get so much custom one off stuff made it increased the cost a lot.
- smarx007 10y agoThey included only the cost of materials. Moreover, the article says that the house was built on the territory of the concrete factory itself. That might explain the discount.
- ghostly_s 10y agoAh, so the whole exercise is entirely pointless, then. Raw material costs are not what makes housing prohibitively expensive, and also not the variable 3d printing is designed to solve for.
- smarx007 10y agoWell, they did say that after the foundation solidified, the actual 3d construction took under 24h. So it does reduce the construction time. But not sure how much hiring such a printer would cost. And how much headache the building permits will be...
- tlrobinson 10y agoA round building can also be larger than a square building constructed with the same "printer" that articulates around the center.
- mark-r 10y agoA round building maximizes the area for the amount of wall material. You get benefits not only in the initial building materials but in the ongoing heating/air conditioning. Rectangular buildings are only popular because they're easier to build and easier to fully utilize. A totally spherical building such as a Buckyball is even more efficient/more awkward to utilize.
- saeranv 10y agoAwkward to utilize is right, try and insert furniture, kitchen/washroom utilities in a round room. The other problem is that the low surface:volume ratio means daylight penetration is pretty difficult. That's why hyper-optimized building geometry (for cost and building code) go in the other direction, high surface:volume achieved through more and more extrusions (i.e. towers in HK).
- likeclockwork 10y agoWhy not put square rooms into your round building and use the voids for closets or some other purpose? The interior shape of a dwelling doesn't have to directly conform to the exterior.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Why not put square rooms into your round building and use the voids for closets or some other purpose? Because nonrectangular closets are also awkward to use (moreso than putting furnishings directly on curved or non-right-angle walls, the problem with furnishings is that you have to have them custom made for the wall angles or degree of curvature, which is expensive, but they often aren't inconvenient at all in use.)