Prototype House is 3D-Printed in Just 12 Hours

The widespread adoption of 3D-printed construction seems more a case of when rather than if, and so far we’ve seen houses, a castle, and even a military barracks created using the promising tech. The latest notable development comes from S-Squared 3D Printers (SQ3D), which 3D-printed a basic prototype home in an estimated 12 hours.

The unnamed 500-sq-ft (46-sq-m) structure was built using the same method as other 3D-printed projects we’ve covered and involved a nozzle extruding a cement mixture in layers to create a house shape, though the printer itself does have some refinements over standard off-the-shelf models. Indeed, in addition to its construction work under the name SQ4D, SQ3D sells 3D printers for hobbyists, prototyping and educational uses.

“Our machine is a simple gantry style Cartesian printer, but we have patented features that separate us from the pack,” the firm told us over email. “We are using a rotating (tangential) nozzle with a rectangle output to extrude a controlled ribbon, among a few other functions that we are experimenting with.”