The Man Who Prints Houses

The Man Who Prints Houses - Documentary about Enrico Dini and his heart and soul in 3D printing buildings

Feb.16, 2012

"The Man Who Prints Houses" is a upcoming film about a genius in the 3d printing world who intents on changing the world forever.

Enrico Dini is the man who prints houses. He is an Italian inventor who has developed a new construction technique based on the principle of 3D printing. His largest 3D printer in the world - can build 3D objects from sand and a binding agent.

The film follows Enrico from his ambitious business ideas, to financial problems and struggles in his family life. It shows some of his innovative projects: constructing the tallest printed sculpture in existence, working with Foster + Partners and the European Space Agency on a programme to colonise the moon, solidifying a sand dune in the desert, and printing the closest thing to an actual house: a small Italian dwelling known as a trullo.

Enrico Dini's D-shape 3D printer is a large aluminium gantry structure, which uses CAM software to drive a huge print head during the building process. It can print buildings - at least the most parts of it - on site with much less manpower needed for construction. It deposits sand followed by an inorganic binding material. Excess material acts as a support to the binded structure and when the print is finished the excess material can be removed and reused. This process has low maintenance costs and no water is used since the component parts are 'mixed' when they meet outside of the inkjet nozzles.

Enrico dreamt of building objects with impossible shapes. With his D-Shape 3D printer they could make previous impossible forms. His largest structure "the Radiolaria", is a 2m tall sculpture inspired by the architect Andrea Morgante. It took him ten days to print the structure. A full scale of 8.5m high version of the Radiolaria has been installed in Pontedera Italy.

Watch trailer of The Man Who Prints Houses after the jump.

image credit: Enrico Dini

Source: boingboing& develop3d

 

Colin Rose (M Eng) | Design Engineer | Future Products Group
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