Almost everything around us is made automatically: our shoes, our clothes, home appliances and cars – so why not buildings? Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, the Director of the Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California, has set out to change that through the development of an automated construction process known as Contour Crafting. “Contour-crafting is basically scaling-up 3D printing to the scale of buildings. What we are hoping to generate is entire neighborhoods that are dignified at a fraction of the cost, at a fraction of the time, built far more safely and with architectural flexibility that would be unprecedented,” Khoshnevis says in this TedxTalk in Ojai, California.
Counter Crafting constructs buildings layer by layer using concrete and can also be used to implement building reinforcement, plumbing and electrical wiring. Khoshnevis is currently working with NASA to use Counter Crafting for lunar structures, but he also envisions the technology being used for low-income and commercial housing.
Watch the full TEDxTalk above to learn more about Contour Crafting and the implications it could have for housing development and construction, and for more information check out our past coverage on Contour Crafting below.
