Will You Buy Your Next Home at Kinko's?

You could be 3D printing your next cohousing home.

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China's WinSun Group's Six-Story 3D Printed Mansion

No kidding.  

In just five -10 years, you could be 3D printing your next cohousing home … and living in it within 24 hours!

Already the Chinese firm WinSun 3D printed a mansion, 10 houses and a multi-story apartment building.

Australian researchers say the unique advantages of 3D printing for affordable housing, emergency shelters and architectural flexibility are within the three to five year time range.  Certainly component parts for housing could be manufactured using 3D printing saving time and, therefore, money.

Now check this out:  Contour Crafting is a technology developed by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis University of Southern California, which allows a single house or an entire neighborhood to be constructed in a single run.  Dr. Khoshnevis believes a 1-story home could be fabricated in 24 hours.  He further believes a fully implemented 3D printed home with plumbing, wiring, tiling etc. could save about 60% over regular construction methods.  The savings for affordable and emergency shelter housing could be higher.   Of course, this technology has to be scaled up to be financially competitive for mass production for the current real estate market.  The chief place in which savings can occur with 3D printed homes is in rising labor costs.  

Are these homes environmentally friendly?  Contour Crafting results in near zero waste after the construction of the home is completed.    Unknown by me at the time this is being published is what material is used to create the home, how much energy is used to fabricate the home and how that balances out with the savings on time and zero waste.  I have requested this information from Contour Crafting.  Will update you as soon as I hear from them.

One of the many advantages of cohousing for developers is that its buyers are “early adopters.”  They are often willing to be on the cutting edge of technology.  Unlike standard development which is very, very conservative because its pool of buyers is conservative, cohousers are risk-takers when it comes to technology and the environment.  So if this technology can save time, money and resources … will cohousing lead the charge?   Will cohousing once again be ahead of the curve?

What do you think?

Is this technology is feasible?

Will it be adopted by cohousing?