Community printer

Residential structures are getting more high-tech. Skyscraper designer and engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is coming up with a high-rise that has its own electricity generator based on the technology of clean power storage company Energy Vault (EV).

The designer of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building on the planet at more than 828 meters (2,700 feet), is integrating EV’s gravity energy storage technology into building designs. Special structures will be built alongside residential high-rises and these will feature motors that lift and stack concrete blocks using renewable energy during low power demand.

When electricity demand is high, the blocks are lowered one by one. The descent spins the motors like a generator and converts the kinetic energy from the falling blocks back to electricity. The system is based on the principle of gravitational potential energy, much like traditional pumped hydro storage, but it uses solid blocks instead of water.

Meanwhile, traditional-looking bungalows at Wolf Ranch, a residential community in Georgetown, Texas, USA, are being unconventionally constructed. Using a unique machine, each of the three- to four-bedroom homes is built in about three weeks, with the foundation and metal roof installed traditionally, Reuters reports.

Builder ICON uses the 3D printer called Vulcan, which measures more than 13.7 meters wide and weighs 4.75 tons, to build the houses.

The Vulcan works by pumping a mix of concrete powder, water, sand and other additives into the printer and a nozzle squeezes out the concrete mixture like toothpaste onto a brush, building up layer by layer along a pre-programmed path that creates corduroy-effect walls, according to Reuters.

With only one person operating the 3D printer, the construction cost is less than the traditional building process.

ICON touts Wolf Ranch as the world’s largest 3D-printed community after Vulcan completes the remaining 100 units.