3D printed houses for a renewed balance between environment and technology
WASP introduces a new -house- idea, a 3d printed house totally realised trhough digital fabrication. It's the EREMO project: a new adventure where unexplored projet and executive fields melt in the WASP technology.
WASP's aim has always been to work at the society-service, ie: looking for eco-friendly solutions to the human primary needs, optimizing the environmental, energetic, technological or human available resources. WASP has been testing materials and updated technologies for several months in order to set up a new living system, starting from the 3D printing.
Thanks to the gathered experience, with the 3d printer BigDelta WASP 12MT experimentation, in continuos improvement, Eremo has been created, a versatile and consistent model of refuge with an environmental impact near zero thanks to the use of local materials and of machinary of speed prototyping or at numerical control. With the help of the engineering and of the virtual construction, nowadays it's possible to optimize the area-resources efficiency and spare on the production costs.
The research of a bond between technology and behaviour has brought to this “architectural archetype”, result of a multidisciplinary investigation project, around which several fields converge and turn: renewable energies, furniture design, Hydroponic ressearch, vertical garden plantations. All these fields make progress in parallel, to converge in a house model based on self-production, reproducibility and scalability basis.
Eremo is a model of “inactive” architecture, because is able to sutisfy most of the energetic needs throght inactive apparatus, able to produce energy instead of using it. A house model that sets man free from debt and that does not pollute. This architectural model, being built with natural materials taken from the origin area and that can be used again or ricyclable at its life-end, is wasteless.
MIXED BUILDING TECNIQUE
The Engineering process and the digital fabrication allow to predict, during the design phase, multiple variables regarding the internal and the external structure of the building. It is possible to:
- operate on the thermic or acoustic insulation of the walls;
- provide previously a location where to put the plant design (for example electric cables) inside the walls;
- know in advance where to locate an eventual internal wood structure ;
- plan a self-standing and earthquake proof configuration.
The experimentation process regarding the composition of the material is a fundamental step for a good result. To realize the walls an LDM technology has been used, with a mixture of simple materials: dirt, water and straw.
COB houses have an high thermal inertia, a good endurance burning and are antiseismic. When sand and lime are added, the walls are more breathable and they keep a completely natural composition.
PROPERTY OF MATERIALS
Dirt
It has a very good thermal inertia which garantees in summer cool space and hot one in winter.
It works like an heat accumulator: it gets warm and cold slowly, therefore it makes a phase displacement of 12 hours up, between the internal and the external walls (it changes in relation to temperature, climatic areas and thickness of the wall). Dirt is a very good acoustic insulating material (a wall of 14,3 cm plastered with clay, allows an insonorization of 43 dB).
It has a very good resistance to fire , since in case of blaze it is subjected to the firing process. Good resistance to earthquakes, too. Furthermore, dirt regulates the humidity in the air since it absorbs the water in the air to release it when the weather is dry; in this way it keeps the percentage of humidity stable during night and day and in the different seasons.
Since this material is really breathable, it allows the transfer of the water vapour from the inside to the outside, avoiding the mould growth. It absorbs harmful substances, smells and smoke, purifying the air with a completely natural process.
Straw
Very good thermal insulating and noise-absorbing material. If mixed with other breathable materials like dirt and lime, this property is facilitated, so it prevents the mould growth and the persistence of the humidity inside the walls.
Straw makes dirt lighter, thus it improves the resistance to earthquake and it makes the structure more flexible, allowing the vibrations to be absorbed, reducing structural failures.
Lime and sand
These inert materials give dimensional stability to dirt, reducing the shrinking of the material during the exsiccation. Moreover, they have the function of making the mixture more uniform. They contribute to regulate the humidity of the air.
In particular, thanks to lime it is possible to have a chemical process called carbonation: the wet and slacked lime (hydrated calcium Ca(OH)2), drying releases water and absorbs carbon dioxide(CO2) from the air, changing its structure in calcium carbonate. Lime, through carbonation, becomes a mineral comparable to stone before the firing process.
Let’s print together the first adobe building !!
The WASP’s Technological Village is working non-stop these days at the open-air construction site, in Massa Lombarda (Ravenna). We are proceeding with experiments from Monday to Friday whereas during Weekends we plan following activities. Now WASP invites all the Makers and everybody interested to partecipate and actively contribute to the building of the first house entirely printed with eco-friendly, locally found, materials (a mixture of terrain and straw kneaded with a mixing machine and a motor hoe).
The working method is simple: for every problem we look for the best solution. Everyday we are learning more and more, managing small and big problems and trying to solve them. The test we started the last Saturday seems impressive and we have decided to continue to print till the conclusion of the first habitable module.
First experiences have taught us a lot. The mixture of terrain and straw is light and strong. Now we have a 50-centimeter-high wall, extruding more than 400 quintal of material.
The way now is open and the performance will be finished destroying the prototype, so the raw material will be cultivable again. The keyword of the Technological village is “DIY”. We want to build a new Economy Vision based on a self-sufficient Society able to produce basic requirements in many fields: Housing, Food, Employment, Healthcare, Education and Art.
At the Shamballa Technological Village the BigDelta prints and WASP is organizing open-air workshops inviting all the Makers to partecipate.
During the next days we’ll bring to Shamballa other WASP’s printers. For example the Delta WASP 3MT, a machine able to print plastic pellet or, changing the extruder, semi-fluid materials (such as geopolymers and clay) and, with an other tool, can mill and cut different types of materials.
In fact at the Technological Village we will produce house furnitures and it will be the theme of the first open-air workshop that will start the next Saturday the 23rd July. Who is interested partecipating is welcome to use WASP’s printers. The next workshops, always at weekends, will concentrate on vertical vegetable gardens (aromatic spirals), ceramic plates printing and kilns construction.
Some friends from the FabLab Venezia worked with us some days ago. We invite all the Makers who want to turn dreams into action to come here in Shamballa.
WASP’S BIGDELTA RETURNS
The huge 3D printer will be the heart of a technological village rising up in Massa Lombarda in partnership with the Municipality
It’s Rising up a technological village dedicated to 3D printing, the heart of this project is the 12-metres-high printer BigDelta WASP. It happens in Massa Lombarda (Ravenna) thanks to a partnership between CSP srl (Centro Sviluppo Progetti – WASProject) and the Municipality that has made available a green area in the industrial zone of the town, in Cooperazione road.
Tuesday March 22th, the Mayor Daniele Bassi and the CSP Business Owner Massimo Moretti, are going to sign the agreement. Works will start at the beginning of next April.
WASP, leader in 3D printing technology, with the goal to disseminate the current state of its technology wants to build an eco-friendly village with low energy consumption. Therefore, Massa Lombarda is going to become an important Technology Experimentation Centre dedicated to 3D printing, a unique case in Italy and maybe in the World.
“Massa Lombarda has always been a district interested in innovation – says the Mayor Daniele Bassi – the important agreement we signed today proves that the cohesion of energy, allegiance and creativity between the Municipality and a capable Entreprenuer like Massimo Moretti, it’s a crucial element of development for our city and the youth who we want to guarantee an adequate future commensurate to their hope”.
“We decided to name the technological village Shamballa – says Moretti – from the name of the mythological place that symbolizes the city of peace, tranquility and happiness. A city quoted in a lot of cultural documents for its spirituality and technical advance. House, Food, Employment, Healthcare and Wellness are the basic human necessities of life – continues Moretti – In our Shamballa we’ll print houses and vertical vegetable gardens of different sizes. There will also be a laboratory for compact desktop printer to make objects (fornitures, biomedical, jewellery, ceramics). Thanks to the collaboration with some artists we are developping a cultural project”.
It’ll be the realization of the “Maker Economy”, the WASP idea of a sustainable economy, a new economical model where everything is selfmade and nobody depends on monopolistic companies. Quick exportable, it would be suitable for places where there is no productive potential or well-functioning infrastructures. Wasp is interested in taking care of World’s poorest country.
The BigDelta was shown for the first time during the meeting “La realtà del sogno”, happened in Massa Lombarda where more then a thousand people took part from 18 to 20 September 2015. In October 2015 the huge printer was bringed to Rome at Maker Faire 2015, where obtained a positive outcome. Inactive for some months because of the climate, now the BigDelta returns to work in a permanent location. The agreement signed today will last three years and is renewable.
TOC ThinkInProgress Future 3D Printed Home
LINK: Artificio Digitale and progetto TOC
Immagini di Artificio Digitale
3d Print - progetto TOC con porcellana utilizzando Delta 4070
3d Print - progetto TOC con porcellana utilizzando Delta 4070
3d Print - progetto TOC con porcellana utilizzando BigDelta 4m
BigDelta WASP 12 meters - The Reality of dream
We made it. The BigDelta, a 12 meters tall 3D printer, took shape and it's going to be presented to the world.
We announce that the launch will be on the 18th, 19th and 20th of September, during an inauguration event which will be in Massa Lombarda, near WASP headquarters, where everything begun.
The researches that we developed to build the BigDelta 12 meters led us to improve our compact 3D printers, we always said it:
the way is looking far and working near.
We owe a lot to this project in this sense too, it was the engine that powered the enthusiasm and the research in the last three years. This important landmark is not the end of our path, our dream became wider.
Our new goal is Maker Economy.
Maker Economy is a new model where everything can be produced by yourself, where there is the chance of not depending on some unsurmountable entity that holds the productive monopoly. WASP is the acronym of World's Avanced Saving Project and our research is focused on the common welfare and shared knowledge. It is not necessary to be great to have great topics, our big goals are the sense of our work.
House, work and food, health, are what a man need to live.
These are the themes of "Reality of dream", the meeting that we're organizing on the 18th, 19th, 20th of September, in Massa Lombarda. This gathering will be a precious moment for sharing ideas and celebrate this important milestone.
We will update this page with the program of the event of BigDelta 12m launch and other contents.
The enthusiasm grows, the purpose is ambitious.
Wasproject connects to Shamballa's energies, the travel toward the perfect city began.
See more>> BigDelta 12m - the History
With the new extruder WASP can truly realize the house dream
Animals teach us that every wasted energy must be recover getting food, getting what they need. The innovation of our research toward 12 meters tall WASP BigDelta, toward the printer for clay houses, is inspired to this concept. In the end the solution we were loking for was in our name, in nature, in potter wasp.
Compared with the one we presented at Maker Faire in Rome on 2014, the distinctive and decisive element that characterizes the evolution of the one we have now is the new extruder. Movements control is crucial in 3D print, but it was very difficult with the old peristaltic pump-extruder. That’s why we completely redesigned adoting a cochlea concept. Now we have an extruder wich can even manage retraction, so it can stop working and pull extruded material back.
In a few words, we moved from a continuous extrusion to a precise flow control,and to the chance of stopping the work and resume it with a micrometric precision. The new extruder can be assembled and disassembled very quickly, it cleans by itself, it needs a very low energy amount and it has a costant control at all the speed levels. Moreover, thanks to rotating nozzle, the material isn’t only extruded but also mixed in his way out. In this was layers are more cohesive and tenacious.
If we look back and think to the way we walked through, the biggest obstacle for the twelve meters tall printer was the extruder. We had to understand not only how to extrude, but also how to refill materials and keep the system operative. It has been a continuous research and we tried many solutions. In the end we went back to the potter wasp, which takes material by her self when she finishes it. With the same system, our printer reduces at minum the amount of energy that it needs. Now we can easily print and do other things instead of refilling material. The save of energy is evident: to push the clay in the tubes it takes several kilowatt, to let clay fall in a controlled way it takes just a few tens of watt.
All these devices are contained in our extruder and characterize the printer. These technical solutions are ready to be repeated in a bigger scale. Now we can say that we created a printer which produces big objects without any waste of energy, and we think this can be a real revolution, not just for the constuction field. We can print not only houses but also animal refuges, pensile gardens. The approach has completely changed, and the main foucs is energy.
What others advantages will grow out of the rotating extruder? We still don’t know. We needed this kind of system to mix material and keep clean the nozzle. From that need we started to arrive at the final result. The force of this technology compared to the ones we tried is that is a continuous supply system, it feeds itself while the printer is working.
Who saw in these years the various technological passages of the machine can understand the greatness of this revolution. Even the only extruder could have important results in the building field. It’s a sort of controlled operation cement mixer. More applications are, as usual, to be discovered yet. In our world it often happens the passage from one kind of technology to another. There is no need to be dogmatic, humilty is very usefull to understand what is the right solution, we must be ready to change our path everyday, or even throw away what we’ve done.
Many people ask us when we’re going to built the first house. Now we have all the conditions and premises to the crucial jump. We think we have played our role, we projected (and in a few time we will build) a printer to erect houses. There are the right conditions. Then, other factors will enter the game, we need other subjects: institutions, municipalities, territories. Sardinia Research (Sardegna Ricerche, is a local institution) and Iglesias municipality are interested in the project. For sure it will be a team work. Others équipes will print houses, we will keep our research to emprove the system. This is our extraordinary, charming and challenging “conviction”.
In the picture BigDelta WASP is printing an object designed by ArtificioDigitale at 3D Print Hub in Milan.