Fibonacci 3D printed house | Good, Bad & Ugly

Eight hours away from Calgary, in a small community called Procter sits a curious-looking 3D printed concrete house. This is the Fibonacci house built by Twente Additive Manufacturing or TAM. It is a 35 m2 or 375 ft2 tiny house, shaped like an extruded Fibonacci spiral.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:58 How it's made
3:58 Good
6:25 Bad
7:26 Ugly
7:59 Conclusion

An outline for the foundation was printed in the factory in separate parts. Insulating foam was sprayed inside and outside the foundation perimeter. Concrete was pumped over the foam and levelled off. Next, 20 separate wall pieces were 3D printed in the factory. The house was made with K1 concrete mix, with an accelerant mixed into the concrete. All you need to do is add the right amount of water and pump it out of one nozzle.

Polyurethane foam insulation was sprayed in the cavity in 12 to 14” increments to ensure complete curing. The house was painted with a grey elastomeric paint with 300% elasticity for additional water repellency and to bridge microfractures. Two 3d printed concrete columns in front of the house support a massive wooden canopy. These were printed with a more expensive K2 concrete mix, where an accelerant was added right before pumping, at the nozzle.

The walls were printed and installed in 5 weeks by 4 workers for $6000. However, finishing the rest of the house brought the total cost up to $100,000. An open plan kitchen and living space are on the first floor of this tiny home, with a shower room tucked inside the narrowest part of the spiral -shaped floor plan. The upper level is reached by a ladder. It can accommodate 2 adults and 2 children. This is the first fully 3d printed home on airbnb.

Let’s discuss all the good things about this project. The Fibonacci house is not just form for form’s sake; they chose a spiral because it would have been very expensive to make this shape with traditional formwork. Printing a curved wall with different radii is not an issue when using a 3D printer. TAM even 3D printed a sculptural table leg and bathroom sink to show off the versatility of the robot. The front door handle is in the shape of a Fibonacci spiral. The quality of the 3D printed beads is excellent. They were straight and even, with very few wobbles. They have printed staircases on sloped land and a modern day stonehenge with sculptures and seating. They have 3D printed a small section of a wall with minimal connections to reduce thermal bridging. When we visited their factory, they were printing concrete wall shingles. They are very transparent and aren’t afraid of showing their mistakes. They showed us how much work goes into cleaning 3D printer nozzle heads and machines: an essential phase that every other 3d printing company hides.

There are a couple of bad things about this project. The lack of adequate insulation at the perimeter of the foundation makes the floor very cold. I use a FLIR thermal imaging camera to see how much heat was lost at the base of walls. Concrete wants to expand and contract at the same spot. Since the house was designed with offset joints, visible cracks have formed on the exterior wall. Also, despite being made from a single 3D model, the curved walls do not align. Inside, many electrical outlet plates are loose.

Now, the ugly. Like I said earlier, the people working for TAM are extremely creative and willing to learn, but they aren’t trained architects, engineers, construction managers or experts in this field and it shows. The beautiful, fun concrete shingles have gaps in between and are screwed directly over Tyvek. There’s no flashing at the top of the windows or the door. There are large gaps at the front door which lets in cold air and bugs. We killed about 50 spiders in 3 hours before bailing.

There’s a quote that “repetition leads to mastery”. We can’t do something once, be satisfied with an average outcome and move on. The house and all the other projects on their site are fun and have so much potential, but they are desperately lacking refinement. I see TAM as a jack of all trades and a consultant to many other businesses in the 3D printing industry. But I’m not sure what they are best at and what they want to focus on.
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[ohsail]

All the printed houses you’ve shown so far have had problems with electrical boxes not fitting correctly. I wonder when just one of them will figure out that, hey, maybe it’s worth putting a couple of hours into fixing this problem? The fact that they’re building these imaginative houses then shoving in a wobbly off the shelf electrical box and saying “close enough” baffles me. It’s always all in the details and I feel like these companies are so transfixed by the big ol’ walls they forget about the critical details.

[grondhero]

I was initially excited about 3D-printed houses, but the more I see of 3D printed houses, the less I like them. I think they would do better to consider the concrete as a replacement for exterior bricks and use wood & drywall on the insides. It seems ridiculous and counter-productive to put your wiring inside the concrete. If you have to rewire your house or opt for a physical change (such as an expansion), it's going to be more expensive than normal, I'd think.

[daviddorge]

As a Canadian I’m proud these guys are trying and glad to see they don’t hide from their mistakes. I’m glad you got to visit Canada. Glad you liked it

[bellafemedia]

I do hope they add artists and architects to their team for future projects. The idea of making Goudy and Borromini-like curves an accessible option to buildings is very exciting.

[edwinstar]

A great video, I think many of us are really hoping this technology will lead to much greater things, in design, cost and comfort. You got most of it right! We thank you Belinda. I never miss a video of yours.

[valdius]

What I see is a solution waiting for a problem. That is for the walls.

I'm an engineer that did RC concrete structures for metro. We were doing lots of curved custom shapes. It's nothing special with a skilled carpenters or good design. The biggest issue is that these are custom one-offs. The walls from the video could have been cured in forms. This is where I see "the future" - prefabricated "fancy" walls. It's cheaper, and since stone is used, also more eco-friendly.

It's a different story for smaller architectural items. These looked very good. I think if 3D companies concentrate on things that cannot be done without 3D printer, they will be profitable.

[seansingh]

Hi Belinda, can you please do a critique of dome houses? In particular there is a type of dome house that is built on an axis that can be rotated to improve energy efficiency (by pointing the windows towards the sun in the winter and away from the sun in the summer. It looks like a really interesting idea, but there has to be some reason why the market hasn't adopted it.

[sunspot]

It feels like, if much of a cost of a home isn’t the walls but the finishing, that 3D printing needs to address that cost if it wants to become a useful alternative to other construction methods. Can they 3D print cabinets, sinks and such?

[klafbang]

Did you just say they used cubic meters of concrete? Because that's a block 200 meters wide, 200 meters long, and 20 meters high which is significantly more than the volume of the house…

[RealSalica]

Do you think the small iron bars are doing anything about reinforcing the structure ? I like the foot they made for the table, did they used resin to cover the concrete ? The sink looked nice as well . I think it would look way better if they could find a way to cover the walls (at least inside) because I don't see how you can clean them, and imagine the dust in every cracks after a year ....

[craigkeller]

I’ve only been building a little over 55 years. This is brilliant and matches the rest of your videos.

[-MacCat-]

Thanks for bringing us this excellent exercise in engineering and materials use and handling Belinda.
Insofar as a viable alternative to house building it has a way to go, but they are giving it a shot and major kudos to them for trying it.

[gregorhi]

I think you stated the bigger problem with 3D printed building very well. It's mostly done by companies focussing on the tech side rather than companies with traditional building experience using 3D printing as a new tool. If you want to print a house then you should first and foremost know how to build a house.

[assamite]

Where insulation? or heating? It looks like it's placed in a humid and cool location.
Your bones will twist like screws if You will try to sleep in there.

[victoriaq]

"The total volume of concrete used is 800, 000 cubic meters" That volume of concrete would be enough to pave a foot thick two lane highway for more than 267 miles. And cost at todays rates ($117/yard USA)= $165 million USD. Must have been a heck of a thick foundation. Belinda do you ever read these comments? Or post corrections?

[drproton]

Saw "Fibonacci" in the title and IMMEDIATELY was intrigued! Most people don't realize how great the Fibonacci spiral is!

[LitwinFishing]

Thanks for coming to Canada, I only live an hour from this place. Hope you enjoyed your trip.

[keith]

I would like to see them do a design that gets covered with earth afterwards, I could see a domed or roman arch style structure providing a much better aesthetic choice. also if you make the home be covered with earth you could simply seal the outer walls with a thick coating and hide its imperfections with the earth covering, this would increase thermal insulation values by a large amount and the wide dome/arch would provide the feeling of a much larger space. Also living walls or moss walls of some type could be installed, with a significant curve on the dome/arch design you could even make it have a tiered rooftop garden space. Weight calculations would have to be done to ensure the roof can handle the weight correctly. In Canada such a design would also allow you to use snow for thermal insulation around the home during the winter, as snow packed and landing on the roof/ground would provide extra insulation during the winter. Anyone have any thoughts? also for adding in rebar reinforcement I have wondered why they do no simply use large pre welded rebar structures and vibrate them into position while it its being formed/printed? this would allow you to put in larger beams and offset them in a donkey kong style grid with some overlap. Would have to be worked out with cure times of previous layer so they can actually go deep enough, but then you could use smaller length beams and do more of them. Think of a 6x6 or 4x4 rebar lattice in a H shape or just normal lattice shape vibrated in after a few layers have been put down, it would provide support and the offset would allow redundancy and strength to the structure. With a dome shape to ensure lots of natural light it would have to have a very large front with lots of glass to allow enough spill thru to the main living space areas.

[baloneyjusticecheezedog]

I was really excited by there smaller projects like the sink vanity, the out door sculpted seating and stairs, and other smaller concrete sections. the house itself does make the best use of 3d printed concrete I seen.. but this still does not beat conventional wood construction... I want to see these guys try pushing the technology more into prototyping concrete solutions for pre production.. printing out retainer walls for specific sections of a building sight could be fantastic..

[normanlorrain]

Good on them inviting you to give input. Come visit Canada again!