World’s Largest 3D Printed Building

Here at 3D Rapid Print, one of the fastest growing 3D Printing companies in the Thames Valley, we like to keep abreast of the latest innovations in 3D printing.

On October 25th 2019, 3D printing specialist Apis Cor of Boston, Massachusetts unveiled what it declared was the world’s largest 3D printing building, earning them a Guinness World Record for “Largest 3D-printed structure (volume).” (Guinness had actually awarded the record on October 16th and it is unknown why this was done so early.) The structure will serve as an administrative building for the Dubai Municipality.

The building spans 9.5m (31ft) over 2 storeys and has a footprint of 640 square metres (6,889 square feet). It was made from a special material Apis Cor developed that was based on locally sourced gypsum. About the size of a large car, Apis Cor’s 3D printer had built the building over 500 hours over the course of a year. Laying the building’s foundations, setting the doors and windows in place, and adding roofing and rebar were done via traditional construction means and manual labour. (The word rebar can be defined as “a steel rod with ridges for use in reinforced concrete.”)

This year, Apis Cor intends to use their 3D printing technology to build affordable housing projects in California, Florida and Louisiana. Work to ensure their 3D printed houses meet the relevant building regulations is ongoing. By 2021, Apis Cor hopes to have opened some small-scale factories for making 3D printing materials; they also hope to be selling 3D printers to construction companies intending to do custom designs.

Apis Cor’s previous ventures include winning phase 3 of NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Competition. This was done in collaboration with self-proclaimed “develops human supporting design concepts for space exploration” SEArch+ of New York City, New York. (SEArch+ is short for Space Exploration Architecture.) In March 2017, Apis Cor claimed that they had 3D printed a 38-square-metre house in Russia in 24 hours for circa $10,000. Apis Cor’s founder and CEO proclaims that their next construction 3D printer will be twice as fast as the one used to print the building in Dubai.

3D printing is an amazing tool. It can grow your small business or start a mini revolution in an industry. Explore what it can do for you when you contact us today.

Disclaimer: Featured image of “Sepia skyscraper (Unsplash)” has been dedicated to the public domain by its author (known only as loic lextrait lextrait) under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.