It is always exciting to do a follow-up on a previous story and get updated on that designer, artist, architect or project we mentioned a while back. In 2019 we looked for example at the TECLA project, a sustainable living habitat with two-bulbous onion-shaped sections, designed by Mario Cucinella Architects (MCA), an architectural studio based in Bologna and Milan specialised in recycling and the circular economy, in collaboration with Massimo Moretti's pioneering 3D printing company WASP (World's Advanced Saving Project).
The first TECLA building, developed in Massa Lombarda, near Ravenna, with the support of the SOS - School of Sustainability (a postgraduate training centre founded by Cucinella to create professionals in the field of sustainability), has finally been completed and it is now ready to be presented to the public.
From a distance the unit looks as if it were made of wicker, but TECLA - a name that, combining two words, "Technology" and "Clay", is actually inspired by the name of the town in continuous construction in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities - is made with reusable and recyclable locally sourced clay.
The structure is conceived as a habitat to be built on site in a short period of time using two collaborative synchronised 3D printer arms simultaneously adding layer upon layer of an earth mixture to create solid walls. A dedicated software capable of optimising movements, avoids collisions and ensures streamlined operation. Each printer unit has a printing area of 50 square meters which therefore makes it possible to rapidly build independent housing modules in just a few days.
The round shape of the 60 square meters building with its two continuous elements comprising a living zone with a kitchen and a night zone which includes services, forms a sinuous and uninterrupted sine curve culminating in two circular skylights almost reminiscent of the Pantheon's oculus. The shape of the house is inspired by organic forms found in nature and guarantees the structural balance of the construction offering a visually pleasing effect, while responding to local climatic conditions.
The material employed for the building and the filling of the envelope - a biomaterial made from rice husk and rice straw from rice cultivation waste by company Rice House (fashion designers reading this, keep in mind biomaterials you may be using when building temporary spaces for a runway shows) - is parametrically optimised to balance thermal mass, insulation and ventilation according to climate needs.
The recycled fabrics featured in the building - by Orange Fiber (a company producing textiles from citrus juice by-products), and furnishings partly printed in local earth and integrated into the raw-earth structure and partly designed to be recycled or reused - reflect the philosophy of the circular house model.
"We like to think that TECLA is the beginning of a new story," Mario Cucinella states. "It would be truly extraordinary to shape the future by transforming this ancient material with the technologies we have available today. The aesthetics of this house are the result of a technical and material effort; it was not an aesthetic approach only. It is an honest form, a sincere form."
TECLA can be delivered with 200 hours of printing, 7,000 machine codes (G-code), 350 12 mm layers, 150 km of extrusion, 60 cubic meters of natural materials for an average consumption of less than 6 kW. Massimo Moretti, from WASP, is excited at the prospect of providing people with an innovative technology that can make a genuine difference.
Inspired by the Potter Wasp, Moretti's WASP is interested in building houses with natural materials, at a cost tending to zero. WASP has developed in the last six years a series of printers aimed at the world of architecture, from the Big Delta WASP, the largest printer in the world that can build a monolith housing module, to the Crane WASP, an innovative technology to print on site eco-districts at low environmental impact, that was used to build Gaia, the first 3D printed earthen house.
"TECLA shows that a beautiful, healthy, and sustainable home can be built by a machine, giving the essential information to the local raw material," Moretti states about the collaboration with MCA. "TECLA is the finger that points to the Moon. The Moon is the home, as a birthright, for everybody on the planet. From TECLA on, that's getting possible."
Many think 3D printing technologies will be successfully employed in future in the building industry not just to create buildings with shapes and dimensions that it would be difficult to achieve with traditional methods, but because this technology applied to housing offers flexibility, helping to cut cost, reducing materials and construction times. These qualities means that 3D printing may be the key to solve the housing crisis.
There is a trend at the moment for 3D printed houses: there are already structures partially or entirely built with this technology in different countries, from Europe to America.
In The Netherlands, construction firm Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix planned to build five homes on a plot of land by the Beatrix canal in the Eindhoven suburb of Bosrijk.
The first one - a two-bedroom boulder-shaped house built with a specially formulated cement mixture with load-bearing walls made using a 3D printer nozzle - has already been rented.
In California two companies - Palari, a sustainable real estate development group, and Mighty Buildings, a construction technology company - launched a partnership to transform a piece of land in Rancho Mirage into a planned community of 15 3D-printed, eco-friendly homes with multiple bedrooms, bathrooms and a even a pool, in a mid-century modern style. So it looks like the next chapter of the Desert Modernism architectural style will be written by a 3D printer.
There are differences, though, between these houses and TECLA: the house built in Eindhoven is a functional bunker-like building that doesn't have the pleasant forms of MCA's structure, besides it was printed in sections. First the 24 concrete elements were printed layer by layer at a plant in Eindhoven, then they were transported on site where they were assembled (larger houses may be built directly on site, though, optimising times). TECLA is instead built directly on site.
Most of these houses also employ mainly concrete, TECLA instead is a nearly zero-emission project: it is indeed made with raw earth and biodegradable and recyclable natural materials that allow to reduce waste and scraps, so MCA's project is a pioneering example of low-carbon housing and a great way to respond to the climate emergency.
Comments