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Category: habitats – Page 130

How to Build Your Own Starter House in Just 5 Steps — for $25,000

If you’re interested in one day creating your own eco-house using open source tech, this kit is great place to start:

Picture this: you own a small piece of land. Nothing fancy — just a small plot. A group of people shows up, sets up a workshop in your shed, and within five days, using materials available at your local hardware store or made from the raw resources of your land, builds you a small starter house kitted out with state-of-the-art eco features for less than $25,000.

Sound crazy? Well, open source advocate and maker Catarina Mota and inventor Marcin Jakubowski (see their TED Talks, “Play with smart materials” and “Open-sourced blueprints for civilization,” respectively), are making the dream of accessible, affordable eco-housing come true with their Open Building Institute Eco-Building Toolkit. They’ve already built several prototypes and tested the concept through a series of educational builds.

As they close out a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to take the idea to the next stage of development, Marcin and Catarina give the lowdown on barn-raising, open source style. Here’s how it works:

It’s Time for Fancy Apartments to Offer Balconies for Drone Landings

Make no mistake: Drones are coming, and they’re going to change a lot of things about how we shape our lives. So why shouldn’t we change how we shape our buildings to get ready for them?

Early adopters will probably buy personal flying vehicles in the not too distant future. Some models are being developed as we speak. Maybe an innovative architectural firm will even pitch the idea of building a ‘drone-ready’ condo tower in Japan or Dubai in the coming months—and maybe it will sell faster than we think.

MIT group reveals design for 3D printed fibreglass structures on Mars

Last month, NASA announced the winner of its 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, a competition in which entrants were tasked to develop architectural concepts. These concepts were to implement 3D printing techniques for the construction of habitats on Mars, using materials that could be sourced from the Red Planet itself.

The 3D Printed Habitat Challenge received 165 submissions, with the thirty highest scoring entries being displayed at the New York Maker Faire on September 27th. The overall winner and recipient of the $25,000 grand prize was Team Space Exploration Architecture and Clouds Architecture Office with their Mars Ice House design. The runners up were Team Gamma, who received $15,000, whilst third place was awarded to Team LavaHive.

“The creativity and depth of the designs we’ve seen have impressed us,” said Centennial Challenges Program Manager Monsi Roman. “These teams were not only imaginative and artistic with their entries, but they also really took into account the life-dependent functionality our future space explorers will need in an off-Earth habitat.”

NASA Building Deep Space Habitats with Private Companies on Earth

Continuing on with NASA’s trend of contracting work out to private companies, they have just started accepting bids and designs to create space habitats. The habitat selected will eventually house astronauts in future space missions, and possibly those that go to Mars. In their initial announcement, NASA has shown 6 different companies along with each’s design. This is all part of the NextSTEP-3 program.

DARPA is Working to Make Homes That Grow And Can Repair Themselves

DARPA has just launched the Engineering Living Materials program, with a vision to create building materials that grow on-site. The materials would be used to construct buildings that repair themselves and adapt to the environment.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has certainly had its hand in making the gizmos and gadgets we enjoy into a reality. The agency is still hard at work blazing the trail for the tech of the future, issuing challenges for the creation of the most advanced things on this Earth.

It has issued a new challenges, this time in the field of construction. DARPA has just announced the Engineering Living Materials program, a program to develop building materials that grow on site, repair themselves, and even adapt to the environment. “The vision of the ELM program is to grow materials on demand where they are needed,” said ELM program manager, Justin Gallivan, in a press release. “Imagine that instead of shipping finished materials, we can ship precursors and rapidly grow them on site using local resources.”

Saudis look to Chinese 3D printing company to tackle housing shortage

China’s big win.

Last week a team from Chinese 3D printing construction company WinSun visited Saudi Arabia, meeting with department of housing official and others to discuss the kingdom’s housing shortfall.

According to 3ders.com and others, the Chinese firm’s chairman and vice president met officials from the housing department and investment authority, and were told the Saudi government believes WinSun’s technology could help meet a shortage in available housing. WinSun was invited to open a Saudi factory.

According to an April report from Reuters, the Arab state is looking at a shortfall of 1.5 million housing units over the next five years.

Saudi Arabia plans to 3D print 1.5 million houses with WinSun’s construction 3D printing tech

WOW — now that’s an engineering feat.

While Dubai is keen to become a 3D printing world leader with their Dubai 3D Printing Strategy, they are by no means the only Middle Eastern nation to look into this technology. Last week a delegation of Chinese WinSun officials traveled to Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to discuss construction 3D printing. Among others, the Chinese construction 3D printing pioneers were invited to 3D print up to 1.5 million housing units over the next five years.

WinSun is the company that made construction 3D printing a practical reality. Back in 2014, the Shanghai-based company created headlines all over the internet for building not one, but ten 3D printed houses in less than 24 hours. Since then, Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co., to give its full name, has been building on that initial achievement with one 3D printed concrete creation after another. Back in March, they even unveiled two gorgeous 3D printed Chinese courtyards.