Meet the TECLA house, the first ever 3D-printed house made from raw earth! The structure was printed over several months by large machines with specialised nozzles, for a total construction period of over 200 hours. The house is an elegant dome composed of 60 cubic meters of mud dug up from a nearby riverbed.
Italian 3D-printing firm WASP collaborated with architect Mario Cucinella to fully realize the dream of pairing a very old construction material, in this case, mud, with a new technology-- which was 3D printing. As Cucinella said to Wired, the project is “a combination between high tech and local material.” In addition to fulfilling this dream, the project also serves as proof that somehow, we could ship a printer to a remote area and start printing using the nearby materials only.
Besides the combination of old and new, Cucinella further explained that one of the motivations behind the construction was to slow down climate change. The house was built to adapt to different climate conditions. From allowing natural light into the different areas of the house to enabling more efficient heating and cooling, the aim was to create a sustainable living area. Further experiments are being conducted in order to analyze how the TECLA house reacts to heating.
Image credit: Iago Corazza