World’s first functioning 3D-printed office building was inaugurated in Dubai, a part of a drive by the Gulf’s main tourism and business hub to develop technology that cuts costs and saves time.
The printers - used industrially and also on a smaller scale to make digitally designed, three-dimensional objects from plastic - have not been used much for building.
This one used a special mixture of cement, a Dubai government statement said, and reliability tests were done in Britain and China.
The one-storey prototype building, with floorspace of about 250 square metres (2,700 square feet), used a 20-foot (6-metre) by 120-foot by 40-foot printer, the government said.
“This is the first 3D-printed building in the world, and it’s not just a building, it has fully functional offices and staff,” the United Arab Emirates minister of cabinet affairs, Mohamed Al Gergawi, said.
{{/usCountry}}“This is the first 3D-printed building in the world, and it’s not just a building, it has fully functional offices and staff,” the United Arab Emirates minister of cabinet affairs, Mohamed Al Gergawi, said.
{{/usCountry}}“We believe this is just the beginning. The world will change,” he said.
The arc-shaped office, built in 17 days and costing about $140,000, will be the temporary headquarters of Dubai Future Foundation - the company behind the project - is in the centre of the city, near the Dubai International Financial Centre.
Gergawi said studies estimated the technique could cut building time by 50-70% and labour costs by 50-80%. Dubai’s strategy was to have 25 percent of the buildings in the emirate printed by 2030, he said.