University of Nantes team of engineers have showcased and emergency 3D printed house that is built in just 30 minutes.

A team of researchers in the University of Nantes, led by Professor Benoit Ferret of the IRRCCYN, 3D printed an emergency house in just thirty minutes. Their newly developed 3D printer is called the “INNOprint”. It utilizes a printing mechanism attached on a robotic hand. This allows for an area movement of three square meters that would be nearly impossible to achieve with a Cartesian or Delta setup.

INNOprint currently only works with polyurethane materials. But it’s perfectly fit for an emergency house that is built to last for several months, retaining good insulation properties during this period. Moreover, the polyurethane’s adhesion properties allow for building a roof without the need for any supporting elements.

The house doesn’t look very attractive. That is perfectly understandable since the material, a low number of layers and high printing speed couldn’t possibly produce a work of art. This certainly won’t upset the people in need who can even enjoy the help of the portable printing bot in remote places.

This project was funded by Nantes University industrial partners, and the development of INNOprint was a proof of concept. The team hasn’t slowed down by success. They are actively developing their next version of the printer that will hopefully be able to build houses of up to seven meters high, and be able to print other materials as well.

There are many teams around the globe that manage to print houses and other impressively large cement buildings with monolithic structuring, but INNOprint stands out for its incomparable speed. The only thing missing now is a solid commercial business plan that will persuade investors of the viability of the project, and keep the incoming funding flowing.