The First 3D Printed House ‘Gaia’ Built With Soil, Rice Husks, and Straws

Italian 3D-printing technology developer WASP constructed this  beautiful, eco-sustainable 3D printed house using natural materials such as soil and agricultural waste. It is built to demonstrate the abilities of the company's 3D printer Crane WASP. The house was printed on-site in Massa Lombardo, a town in the Italian region in October 2018. The project is named 'Gaia' because of its use of raw earth as the main binder of the essential mixture. The firm used 25% of soil taken from the site (containing 30% clay, 40% silt and 30% sand), 25% rice husk, 40% from straw chopped rice and 10% hydraulic lime). Read this post below at SURFACES REPORTER (SR) to know more interesting points about the project:

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The company claims that the resulting product is completely biodegradable and, "If the building isn't maintained, it will turn back into soil," stated the company.

Construction Process

The house was built with the modular Crane Wasp printer that can produce homes in a number of formats and sizes.

At first, the constituent mixture is layered using a 3D-printer hovering over through a crane making walls with vertical voids inside, which are then filled with the waste from rice production, such as chopped rice husks and straws for insulation. RiceHouse supplied the vegetable fibres for the project.

According to the firm, this insulating method keeps the temperature inside the house comfortable and warm, avoiding the need for using heaters during the winter.

The mixture is layered using a 3D printer suspended from a crane, creating walls with vertical cavities inside, which are then filled with rice husks for insulation.

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They kept the outer cavity in the wall empty for proper air circulation in the structure and allowed for an energy supply to be fixed within the home walls.

A bio-plaster for coating the structure's internal walls and the roof are also made from rice husks to provide a layer of insulation.

Time and Money Efficient Project

The company finished the construction of the house within ten days (100hours). Also, the mud mixture used to create the house cost them less than a thousand pounds. So, overall, it is a cheap and time-saving project.

"Gaia is a highly performing structure in terms of energy, with almost no environmental impact," the company stated

Based on the statements said by the WASP, 'agricultural waste could become a major resource in the building industry.' The company further said, "It is possible to conceive a future scenario in which one hectare of cultivated paddy field can become 100 square metres of built environment,"

Also Read: A 3D Printed Bio Based Micro Home for a Post Covid Future by Oliver Thomas and Amey Kandalgaonkar

Although this house was built with waste from agricultural production, several other natural and recycled materials are being used in 3D printing for construction these days.

Such 3D printed projects offer an opportunity to disclose the numerous potentials that 3D printing has thanks to the firms who are using natural materials during construction to ensure minimum environmental impact.

Project Details

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