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I watched a warehouse go up over the last few months. Everything above the floor was pre-cast concrete shipped in on flatbed trunks. For the size of the warehou

by yardie 2y ago

I watched a warehouse go up over the last few months. Everything above the floor was pre-cast concrete shipped in on flatbed trunks. For the size of the warehouse it was fascinating to watch just how fast it got built. The big time sink wasn't even the warehouse superstructure. Majority of the project time was leveling, compacting, and foundation. When I see 3D printing construction compared to precast modules I simply don't see a future where printing a whole building is price or labor saving.

dghlsakjg 2y ago
I feel the same way. Especially with a promo piece like this so short on details. If you’ve watched a house, or any structure, go up, you know that building the basic structure happens remarkably quickly. This seems to replace framing, roofing and siding. Maybe drywall too? But you still have all of the expensive/slow stuff like plumbing, electrical and finish carpentry that still has to be done.
- Swizec 2y ago
  > But you still have all of the expensive/slow stuff like plumbing, electrical and finish carpentry that still has to be done. I did some research on modular construction recently to use in a talk about modular software design. This tech is getting really cool! You can nowadays get hotel modules that are full pre-built suites. Comes with all the plumbing, electricals, even furniture. Bed and everything already bolted into place. You just lift it to your hotel’s superstructure, plug in a water pipe, an electric connection, and a sewage connection. Boom. New suite added. I’m sure similarly pre-fab modular family homes exist. We have the tech, question is whether we have the demand.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    > I’m sure similarly pre-fab modular family homes exist. They've existed for longer than I've been alive, and they're called "mobile homes" - but they have a bad reputation. Actually, sorry, I'm wrong - they're not modular in the way you describe.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    They’ve put up two apartment buildings near me that are modular. It was actually super impressive. Once the site was prepped it went together in the space of a few weeks.
  - compsciphd 2y ago
    it's also how cruise ships are built. they slide in the suite into an opening. Also maeans upgrading them just means taking out the suite and putting in a new or already refurbished one (i.e. if its a standard cuboid, get the X needed to "upgrade" cruise ship A ready, take out all X of cruise ship A's modules, replace them with the refurbished/new ones, and then refurbish the ones you took out of ship A for ship B....)
thanzex 2y ago
Maybe one of the few upsides of this tech is the customizability. Sure, you can get a prefab house built in a week or less if you try, but it's going to be constrained by the prefab shape and layout, even with modular blocks there are still design constraints, like with https://www.wikihouse.cc https://www.wikihouse.cc. As seen in other environments, 3D printing lets anyone design and build for their own use case. People are not all about practicality, they want to like their environment too and being able to bring up your house exactly the way you like it is great.
- yardie 2y ago
  > 3D printing lets anyone design and build for their own use case. That may be the case but fundamentally buildings are built to a code, which uses a design pattern (GoF book is literally inspired by architecture), so is repeatable. Customers will ask for bespoke features but none of that scales or even requires 3D printing. And the inventors, so far, are trying to woo investors by suggesting this tech is cheaper than traditional construction and/or scalable. And it so far it hasn't addressed any of that.
pragma_x 2y ago
> pre-cast concrete shipped in I've also seen this done where the walls were cast concrete using molds placed on the large and flat foundation floor. Still went up alarmingly fast. It does make me wonder if similar balloon techniques are worth re-visiting for domestic architecture. Either way, it's amusing to see such a rapid construction technique used to warehouse and bootstrap a completely different rapid construction technique. > Majority of the project time was leveling, compacting, and foundation. And drainage. It's amazing how much time and construction effort goes into "make water go down the hole".
Turing_Machine 2y ago
What if you want a building that isn't a boring, standardized rectangular box?

by yardie 2y ago

dghlsakjg 2y ago

I feel the same way. Especially with a promo piece like this so short on details. If you’ve watched a house, or any structure, go up, you know that building the basic structure happens remarkably quickly. This seems to replace framing, roofing and siding. Maybe drywall too? But you still have all of the expensive/slow stuff like plumbing, electrical and finish carpentry that still has to be done.

Swizec 2y ago
> But you still have all of the expensive/slow stuff like plumbing, electrical and finish carpentry that still has to be done. I did some research on modular construction recently to use in a talk about modular software design. This tech is getting really cool! You can nowadays get hotel modules that are full pre-built suites. Comes with all the plumbing, electricals, even furniture. Bed and everything already bolted into place. You just lift it to your hotel’s superstructure, plug in a water pipe, an electric connection, and a sewage connection. Boom. New suite added. I’m sure similarly pre-fab modular family homes exist. We have the tech, question is whether we have the demand.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  > I’m sure similarly pre-fab modular family homes exist. They've existed for longer than I've been alive, and they're called "mobile homes" - but they have a bad reputation. Actually, sorry, I'm wrong - they're not modular in the way you describe.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  They’ve put up two apartment buildings near me that are modular. It was actually super impressive. Once the site was prepped it went together in the space of a few weeks.
- compsciphd 2y ago
  it's also how cruise ships are built. they slide in the suite into an opening. Also maeans upgrading them just means taking out the suite and putting in a new or already refurbished one (i.e. if its a standard cuboid, get the X needed to "upgrade" cruise ship A ready, take out all X of cruise ship A's modules, replace them with the refurbished/new ones, and then refurbish the ones you took out of ship A for ship B....)

thanzex 2y ago

Maybe one of the few upsides of this tech is the customizability. Sure, you can get a prefab house built in a week or less if you try, but it's going to be constrained by the prefab shape and layout, even with modular blocks there are still design constraints, like with https://www.wikihouse.cc https://www.wikihouse.cc. As seen in other environments, 3D printing lets anyone design and build for their own use case. People are not all about practicality, they want to like their environment too and being able to bring up your house exactly the way you like it is great.

yardie 2y ago
> 3D printing lets anyone design and build for their own use case. That may be the case but fundamentally buildings are built to a code, which uses a design pattern (GoF book is literally inspired by architecture), so is repeatable. Customers will ask for bespoke features but none of that scales or even requires 3D printing. And the inventors, so far, are trying to woo investors by suggesting this tech is cheaper than traditional construction and/or scalable. And it so far it hasn't addressed any of that.

pragma_x 2y ago

> pre-cast concrete shipped in I've also seen this done where the walls were cast concrete using molds placed on the large and flat foundation floor. Still went up alarmingly fast. It does make me wonder if similar balloon techniques are worth re-visiting for domestic architecture. Either way, it's amusing to see such a rapid construction technique used to warehouse and bootstrap a completely different rapid construction technique. > Majority of the project time was leveling, compacting, and foundation. And drainage. It's amazing how much time and construction effort goes into "make water go down the hole".

Turing_Machine 2y ago

What if you want a building that isn't a boring, standardized rectangular box?