Shanghai Company 3D-Prints Six-Storey Apartment Building

Not content with setting a world record for printing new homes last year, Shanghai’s WinSun Engineering is back in the news this month after building a six-storey apartment block and accompanying villa entirely using 3D printing.

WinSun printed the 1100 square metre residential complex as a demonstration of its patented 3D printing technique for construction, and put both buildings on display in Suzhou Industrial Park.

WinSun first made headlines in April last year for printing 10 houses in a single day.

The two buildings were printed in separate modules which were then assembled into the complete structures. Beam columns and steel rebar were added to stabilise the buildings, and insulation was added within the walls.

The buildings were printed using “ink” made of recycled materials including concrete, fiberglass, sand and a hardening agent. The company said that the materials, when printed with a diagonally reinforced pattern, are flexible, resistant to earthquakes and self-insulating.

WinSun estimates that its 3D printing approach to construction uses 60 percent less material, 70 percent less time and 80 percent less labour than traditional home-building techniques.