World’s Advanced Saving Project (WASP) recently made a bold move signifying the role of 3D printing industry in the future of housing industry. The world’s largest delta-style 3D printer was recently unveiled. It can build full-size mud or clay building for virtually zero cost.
BigDelta printer is nearly 40 feet tall, and 3D printed its first house at merely 48 Euros. WASP is a project of an Italian entrepreneur Massimo Moretti who envisions that the project will:
“create a means for affordable fabrication of homes, and provide these means to the locals in poverty stricken areas.”
The project was inspired by mud dauber wasp that builds a home for itself out of the mud. The unique project combines the 3D printing technology with biomimicry and uses mud or clay for 3D printing of houses. The creators went for mud, instead of the popular choice of cement, because of its low environmental footprint. Other advantages of using clay are low cost, easy availability, and natural insulation. The technology will help to provide a shelter to thousands of underprivileged people across the globe:
“Building BigDelta is much more than a dream come true if we consider that, by 2030, international estimates foresee a rapid growth of adequate housing requirements for over 4 billion people living with yearly income below $3,000. The United Nations calculated that over the next 15 years there will be an average daily requirement of 100.000 new housing units to meet this demand.”
See more images of the house below:
The BigDelta will use open source software and clay-mud-plant fibre mixture to build full sized homes. The 4-mater tall prototype of the BigDelta was revealed last year. The actual BigDelta can print thick walls and can lay down up to one meter of material daily.
As Moretti puts it,
“When the work starts again, we will raise the wall until 4 meters, then we’ll create the door and build the roof. In the future we will test new materials and continue the research on soil and straw.”
See the world’s largest Delta Style 3D printer in action below: