If You Build It, They Will Come
Anyone who built a house just a few years ago would marvel at the materials that are being used, researched, and planned for building structures tomorrow. Many practices in the construction industry have not substantially changed in fifty years, but serious disruption is about to begin.
Hundreds of new products now in the testing phase aim to bring down the cost, improve the quality, increase the strength, and reduce the length of time needed to build new structures. Once these innovations become the construction industry standard, they will substantially increase the number of new housing developments, hopefully making homes more friendly, affordable, adaptable, and economically feasible.
Companies that don’t think ahead will be left behind. In the highly competitive construction industry, there is a dramatic need for rapid, agile adoption of new tools, technology, and ways of doing business.
Which builder would you pick if one claimed to be able to deliver a 2,500-square-foot house not in three to six months but in twenty-four hours? With a 3D printer, you can create designs or print 3D models of just about anything under the sun, from a gun to a guitar, and in the construction industry, 3D printing can be used to create construction components or even to “print” entire buildings.[1] Construction 3D printing may allow faster and more accurate construction of complex or bespoke items while lowering labor costs and producing less waste.
One Chinese company has constructed in just twenty-four hours a set of ten single-story, 3D-printed homes formed with a cement-based mixture made with construction waste and glass fiber, at a cost of just $5,000 each.[2]
Three-dimensional printers can even produce entire prefab walls with ready-made compartments in which various electronics and appliances may be installed, based on specific customer requests. There’s a lot riding on 3D-printing (or stereolithography) construction methods, which will create ways to build homes for a fraction of the current cost and cut traditional construction time by at least 30 percent.[3]
The groundbreaking method takes soil, combines it with just a few additives, and turns it into a building material with a tensile strength three times stronger than industrial clay. Using this material, the poorest countries in the world could build schools, houses, and even hospitals from the ground we walk on.[4]
One printing technique uses a concrete mixture guided by a computer that directs a tube of material to follow the entire outline of a house in one lap, followed by another and another until it is time for the roof. This is a process called continuous contour crafting.[5] Using this process, MIT researchers created a robotic system that manufactured the basic structure of a building in less than fourteen hours.[6] A US construction company 3D-printed a 650-square-foot house on-site in less than twenty-four hours for $10,000.[7] What’s more, this process can also be used with metal, called the WAAM (wire arc additive manufacturing) method: a welder with a nozzle fuses layer-by-layer metal rods, kind of like a giant soldering iron.[8]
The 3D-printing construction industry is still in its infancy, so don’t expect high-rise condos to begin sprouting up like magic beanstalks overnight. Just a cursory review of research on 3D printers indicates that the industry has problems to overcome, like high energy input, limited materials, too much reliance on plastic materials, relative slowness, and dependence on fossil fuel.
This construction method still has some development to undergo before it meets strenuous building codes. And it has to gain acceptance from the construction industry, which will take more time. Meanwhile, while the larger-scale applications are still being developed, some companies are using the technology to create individual pieces and parts of structures.
Soon reinforced plastics will make structures lightweight and corrosion-resistant, with walls substantially stronger and longer lasting than most current forms of construction and with built-in solar and water-collecting abilities.
The expense of excess materials and labor costs have traditionally been part of the cost of doing business in construction. Three-dimensional printing and prefabrication allow builders to get material to specifications without waste, cutting construction material costs by as much as 30 to 40 percent and reducing the total human labor it takes to clean up a building site.[9] A Chinese developer, for example, built a fifty-seven-story building in nineteen days through the use of prefabricated building components, preassembled steel framing, an HVAC system (heat and air conditioning), and roofing.[10]
Prefab components are also environmentally friendly, as they reduce material waste and the number of delivery trips to and from the construction site. As more and more building components become prefabricated and standardized, it will become far more practical to insert robots into the construction process. Consider this: robots are already used to produce expensive, intricate machines that demand precision assembly. These same assembly-line robots can and will soon be used to build and print prefab components en masse. And once this becomes the industry standard, construction prices will begin to drop considerably—probably to the dismay of construction unions.
The two major challenges in perfecting 3D-printed construction are the material and the machine. The material mixture must be formulated to be strong enough and dry quickly enough to support the weight of each subsequent layer without any layer falling over or being crushed.[11] At present the cost of machinery is still too high for smaller companies, which also lack experience, have a limited selection of materials, and are limited in technology. But one day, large buildings will be entirely printed by a single machine with no on-site human input (save for maybe a finger to push a button).
It’s easy to predict that product manufacturers of everything from houses to appliances will try harder and harder to compete for market share based on the disclosure of various chemicals of concern and on building techniques.
The equipment and materials for 3D building are improving constantly and their costs are falling.[12]
Regulation, subsidies, and other public policy measures are encouraging the adoption of 3D printing in construction in many parts of the world.
By reducing the costs associated with nonstandard shapes, 3D printing gives free rein to the imagination of architects, designers, builders, and consumers.[13]
3D printing will reduce the construction sector’s harmful impact on the environment: a large proportion of the feedstock (building material) will be 50 percent recycled.[14]
Through the use of conical, hollow, or honeycomb structures, 3D printing increases tensile strength and enhances thermal insulation.[15]
With machines doing much of the heavy lifting, labor will be reduced, though not eliminated, as a need for people to set up and run the machines decreases.
Many 3D-printing construction companies claim their process is faster than using traditional cement and procedures for using it.
The low costs promised could be a major benefit to developers of affordable housing.
With printers working off a single digital blueprint, there should theoretically be fewer errors.
Ideally, printers would use only the exact amount of raw materials needed for each project.
New 3D-printing technology will soon take hours rather than months to complete a building.
As is the case with any revolutionary product or process, adoption of 3D printing in construction has been hampered by slow incorporation into building codes and the imposition of arbitrary bureaucratic standards rather than performance-based results.[16]
Less demand for both labor and traditional materials affects people in many industries.
Transportation and setup can be tedious and costly.
Errors on the digital end can cause tremendous setbacks.
Some of the following construction materials might sound like sci-fi, and some still are. Others are in the research and development stage, and still others are in production. Keep in mind when thinking of alternative building solutions that the future comes sooner than you think.[17] Soon or someday they will be on the shelves of stores and in your homes.
Made from hollow carbon tubes, it is strong but bendable, stable at room temperature, and able to conduct electricity. It can be compressed and returned to its normal size while becoming stronger, not weaker. It can also withstand a lot of vibration—great for materials in aviation and satellites.[18]
This super insulator is one hundred times lighter than water and combines the strength and durability of conventional plastics with lightweight, superinsulating properties. It can stop and isolate sound, cold, and heat. Airloy is strong, stiff, tough, and among the world’s best thermal and acoustic insulators. It can conduct electricity. It can be made from ceramics, polymers, carbon, metals, carbides, or combinations thereof, and is three to ten times lighter than conventional plastics and ceramic.[19]
Made by injecting air into molten aluminum. It is spongy and has a high weight-to-strength ratio. It can be used as strong, lightweight, and durable cladding (covering).[20]
This is a concrete alternative made of fly ash, a by-product of burning coal. Ninety-seven percent of traditional components in concrete can be replaced with this recycled material. And it’s hard as hell too.[21]
It’s a mix of bamboo fibers and an organic resin to ensure the bamboo will not degrade or rot. Growing bamboo absorbs large amounts of CO2, adding to its potential as one sustainable alternative to steel.[22]
One foe that’s going friendly is plastics made from biodegradable material like vegetation, algae, and cornstarch. Bioplastics appear to have great potential, yet there seem to be an almost equal number of drawbacks. Regrettably, many biodegradable plastics may not biodegrade rapidly enough under ambient environmental conditions to replace conventional plastic made from fossil fuels. But bioplastics use 65 percent less energy to make and don’t disperse greenhouse gases. Bioplastics are a hot topic in the scientific community and readers need not look far to find many websites dedicated to their advantages and disadvantages.
Black façade panels are made from this waste product, produced when trees are burned in kilns for energy. Fifty percent becomes heat energy, and the rest becomes biochar, used in sanitation, farming, water filtration, and many other applications.[23]
A one-atom chain is a semiconductor. Boron nitride nanotubes are primed to become effective building blocks in nanoengineering projects. If you pull on a nanotube, it starts unfolding; the atoms yield to a monatomic thread. Release it and it folds back. Boron is used for a myriad of purposes from medicine to rocket fuel igniter to possibly a component of recyclable batteries.[24]
A thousand times as flexible as human muscle, more bendable than rubber, a better conductor of electricity than copper, and stronger than steel, carbon nanotubes can be used for everything from easily recyclable proton batteries, to golf clubs, bicycles, wind turbine blades, car parts, solar panels, and airplanes, to name just a few functions. These ultrathin materials have the potential to revolutionize modern electronics since you can fit more nanotransistors than those made of traditional silicone onto a computer chip. Consequently, the phone in your pocket will be obsolete, only to be replaced by one that is twenty-five times faster.[25]
This heat-sensitive coating has many applications and is already used for a variety of safety products and energy-efficient materials. Heat-sensitive paint that has the ability to change color with the push of a button is called a chromic material. The color change occurs when electrons within the chemical structure of the paint are manipulated, and the visual change in color perception is immediate.[26]
This novel concept is still in the experimental phase. It captures the emissions from power plants and turns them into 3D-printing material that is two and one-half times stronger than concrete.[27]
Sixty billion coconut husks are discarded by the food industry each year. The husks are high in lignin, which can be fully recycled and bound into incredibly strong hardboard, creating less demand for wood and the destruction of forests.[28]
Topmix Permeable is porous and can absorb four thousand liters of water into the ground in just sixty seconds and funneled into the city’s drainage system to be recycled or drained off. It is about the same price as regular concrete.
These porous ceramic bricks soak up water; when air passes through them, the water evaporates and creates a flow of cool air.[29]
A standard-sized disc (smaller than an eyeglass lens) can store around 360 terabytes of data, with an estimated lifespan of up to 13.8 billion years even at temperatures of 374°F. That’s as old as the universe, and more than three times the age of the Earth. The discs store information within their interior using tiny physical structures known as “nanogratings.” The glass is waterproof and heat resistant, and data on it will survive unless this very hard glass is broken.[30]
This is constructed from recycled plastic ground into granules that have been scooped from the sea and mixed with bitumen (a black viscous residue from petroleum distillation). It is used in roads, driveways, and for ground cover.[31]
Waste heat can be turned into electricity via a thermoelectric generator (TEG). This is a solid-state device that converts heat flux (temperature differences) directly into electrical energy through a phenomenon called the Seebeck effect.[32]
Based on iron carbonate, it incorporates largely (95 percent) recycled materials to produce concrete-like building material that is even stronger than concrete. This unique material actually absorbs and traps carbon dioxide as part of its drying and hardening process, making it carbon-neutral.[33]
Once treated with Burnblock, a new fire retardant that blocks oxygen, this plywood won’t burn. While the paint is electrically conductive, it has also has extremely strong radiation-shielding properties, even blocking mobile phone and television signals.[34]
Microlattice, a honeycomb material that has polymer and alumina composites but is 99 percent air, is so light that a slab of it can sit atop a fluffy white dandelion, and a slight breeze can send it floating through air. It is one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam—but as strong as titanium.[35]
This one-atom-thick layer of carbon is one million times thinner than a piece of paper—but strong, flexible, a better conductor of electricity than copper, virtually transparent, two hundred times stronger than steel, and bulletproof. Researchers recently created graphene-coated fabrics that can detect and alert a wearer to dangerous gases in the air. Graphene can also help produce clean drinking water by acting as a filter. But it’s expensive and hard to produce in scale.[36]
These products, made of bendable concrete, will keep buildings from crumbling. Bendable concrete is very impressive in its ability to resist damage, but even more impressive in that it grows back and repairs itself. Once a crack appears and water enters, the microbes are activated and they multiply, excreting calcium carbonate to plug holes and prevent further damage.
To grow bricks, sand is mixed in alternating layers with a solution of bacteria, urea, and calcium chloride, resulting in chemical reactions that yield a mineral growth between the sand layers that in turn binds them strongly together into a brick. Growing bricks as opposed to firing them in a kiln at thousands of degrees saves a lot of energy and will slash annual carbon emissions by hundreds of millions of tons.[37]
A concrete-like material is derived from the woody inner fibers of the hemp plant, which are bound with lime to create concrete-like shapes that are strong and also super lightweight. They also dramatically reduce the energy used to make and transport material. Hemp is also a fast-growing, renewable resource.[38]
Just like toy Lego bricks that “snap” together, the architectural kind will do the same with a layer of mortar-like adhesive threaded with rebar for extra structural reinforcement. One side of each brick can be removed for easy access to the inside.[39]
This is a synthetic composite material with a structure that exhibits properties not usually found in natural materials, for example, a negative refractive index (such as a cloaking material like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak). It could be used in constructing holograms in cameras and electronics.[40]
This could be harvested to make bioplastics or fuel, without waiting a million years for petroleum to mature. Only about six months is needed to make biofuel.[41] It’s environmentally friendly, but efforts to make it profitable have not been favorable so far.[42]
This material is made from recycled newspapers when individual sheets are coated with glue and then tightly rolled into logs. This tough material can be treated like most other wood products by cutting, milling, sanding, and finishing with paint or varnish.[43]
This has nothing to do with making paper swans or fascinating 3D shapes from a flat piece of paper. In the cities of the future buildings might be made cheaper and stronger simply by making them from paper. Objects can morph from a flat piece of paper to a heavy-duty, 3D structure and then back into a collapsed flat surface at the click of a button. Shapes can totally transform to support enormous weights without damage especially when sandwiched between flat pieces of material like plastic. Even with other materials, like metal, builders will be able to utilize the strength and properties of origami construction.[44]
Precise polymer nanostrusses (structures as thin as five-billionths of a meter) can be coated on materials like metal or ceramic. The newly created material possesses characteristics including flaw tolerance and shape memory. For an example, it can make paper unwettable, thermally insulating, and untearable.[45]
Urine might now be called “liquid gold” and can be turned into solid “bio-bricks” (calcium carbonate) by mixing it with sand colonized by species of bacteria that produce the enzyme urease. Unlike regular kiln-fired bricks, bio-bricks don’t require high heat, and producing them doesn’t spew out greenhouse gases. The more time the bacteria are given to work their magic, the stronger the bricks grow, suggesting that several different types of building materials could be created with this method.[46]
A form of bioplastic, this is a mixture of bacteria, yeast, and other microorganisms. Research teams have developed a way to manipulate them into layered structures.[47] Practical applications for buildings are still some way off, but there’s investigation into many applications from construction uses to scaffolds for tissue engineering, bladder neck suspension, soft tissue replacement, and artificial blood vessels.[48]
Mechanoluminescence refers to the phenomenon by which a material will light up when it’s put under some form of physical stress. The given material has nanowires etched on one side and a coating of indium tin oxide (ITO) on the other. When the strips flail in the wind, the nanowires slap against the neighboring ITO. This temporary contact allows electrons to leap from one material to the other, creating a current via a phenomenon known as the triboelectric effect. Covering a 3,230-square-foot rooftop, the strips would deliver enough electrical energy (7.11 kW) to power a household.[49]
A microorganism-based concrete, this can host organisms that produce oxygen while absorbing CO2 and pollution. Bioconcrete will allow the growth of plants that reproduce via spores as opposed to flowers or seeds, such as lichens, mosses, and fungi. Ultimately, bioconcrete will allow plant life to thrive on buildings in a way that is both more sustainable and more efficient than existing green walls.[50]
More architects are returning to wood to build their skyscrapers and ditching the more traditional cement and steel. A Japanese firm unveiled its designs for what could be the tallest wooden building in the world—a 1,148-foot skyscraper—made of 90 percent specially processed wood and 10 percent steel. The building would likely be made of cross-laminated timber (CLT), a material made of many sheets of wood glued and compressed together. The final result is a plank that’s more robust than steel, twelve times stronger than natural wood, and ten times tougher than steel or even titanium alloys. It’s also comparable to carbon fiber but much less expensive. An outside barrier of plastic functions to protect the wood from rotting. Compared to approximately 63 percent of a tree that can be used in solid lumber, composite panels can allow for more than 95 percent use. And because wood is lighter and easier to transport than steel, it requires fewer fossil fuels to transport it, further reducing emissions.[51]
The Terminator is here—or is closer than you think. Scientists have come up with a self-healing skin; a soft, flexible electronic material that can automatically repair itself when damaged. The material relies on photosynthesis—the same biochemical process that plants use to turn sunlight into glucose. It is a thin film in which scientists have embedded chloroplasts (parts of plants that carry out photosynthesis). When ready, it will likely enjoy widespread use in car trims, cell phones, and fabrics, and maybe robots: when their surfaces become cracked or scratched, the film, after exposure to air and sunlight, will easily fill in the gaps.[52]
Fires may be snuffed out soon with deep-toned sound. The new fire extinguisher doesn’t blast out any compressed chemicals; it just uses a loudspeaker the size of a subwoofer. When pointed at flames, it looks like it swallows them; actually it is depriving the fire of air. An added bonus is that there’s no chemical residue or water.[53]
Biodegradable plastics made out of seaweed could finally give the oceans pollution relief. Researchers have found a way to create a bioplastic using seaweed, an accessible, sustainable resource. Their promising new approach may both reduce strain on the plastic-clogged oceans and reduce the earth’s dependence on fossil fuels.[54]
A type of fungus called Trichoderma reesei is being used in a new technique to fill the cracks that develop in concrete and create a self-healing process. When performed successfully, the organism is activated by water and produces calcite, a component of limestone that fills the crack. It’s a low-cost, antipollution, and sustainable material. At Purdue University, researchers are adding cellulose nanocrystals derived from wood fiber to concrete. It increases strength, impact resistance, flexibility, and inhibits the invasion of water, a poison to steel.[55]
It uses chitosan, the main component of the exoskeleton of crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, shrimps, etc.). The chitosan is chemically incorporated into traditional polymer materials, such as the ones used in the clear coatings on cars. When a scratch occurs on the outer coating, the chitosan responds to the UV component of sunlight, filling the scratch.[56]
This plastic has microcapsules embedded in it, and they activate when it cracks, releasing resin and a catalyst. These materials fill the crack, getting the original material back to normal in three hours.[57]
Researchers have introduced a material that assembles itself into a cube when coming into contact with water. Imagine water pipes preprogrammed to expand or contract in order to change capacity or flow rate, or even to undulate like muscular peristalsis to move water or unclog pipes.[58]
Made from leftover shrimp shells and proteins derived from silk it can form strong, transparent sheets that are biodegradable and even enrich the soil. It may be an environmentally friendly alternative to plastics.[59]
Self-powered by thin, transparent solar cells, they control the amount of light and heat entering a building. They can help save on heating and cooling costs.[60]
A second-generation solar cell, or “solar concentrator”: by depositing one or more layers of photovoltaic material on a surface such as glass, plastic, or metal, this film can be used in the screens of electronic gadgets and in windows and doors. The stuff takes advantage of nonvisible wavelengths of light—ultraviolet and near infrared—pushing them to the solar cells and resulting in energy.[61]
SolarLayer is an additive for paints, coatings, and flooring that transforms any surface into a solar energy receptor. Through its application, any roof, wall, street, or path becomes a photovoltaic generator. This technology is designed to work in 3V or 12V systems and has a life expectancy of more than twenty years.[62]
Designed to look like and function as conventional roofing materials, these act as a type of solar energy known as building-integrated photovoltaics.[63]
Made of water-based styrene acrylic polymer, when combined with water it can effectively bind dust and stabilize soil in place, allowing for dirt roads to be made safe, stable, and dustless. Soil stabilization is one of the prime objectives of AggreBind soil and is being used to construct an entire road by utilizing the binding properties of clay soils.[64]
A single layer of atoms with tin in place of carbon, it conducts 100 percent of electricity and revolutionizes microchips increasing power with no heat loss of energy. It may replace silicon as a cheap and abundant material for computer chips.[65]
The major components of SIPs—foam and oriented strand board (OSB)—take less energy and raw materials to produce than other structural building systems. They boost the panel’s insulation values as much as 20 percent.[66]
It’s inexpensive, grows fast, and is surprisingly strong, which is why researchers are looking to get more bang for their bamboo buck when it comes to its uses in construction. The material at the edges of a bamboo rod is actually denser and stronger than the stuff in the middle; it works well as a secondary building material, like plywood, to make houses and buildings stronger, cheaper, with less environmental impact.[67]
Made up of tiny cones, it not only repels water but also can stand up to extreme changes in temperature, pressure, and humidity. Water droplets bounce off the material, carrying dirt with them, which makes it a good coating for cars, boat hulls, medical devices, and windshields.[68]
Thermal bridging (loss of heat due to a break or penetration of building insulation) is one of the primary causes of energy loss in a building. Nanogel-filled polycarbonate sheets (composed of synthetic or biopolymers) increases the insulation factor using less material and less energy than glass. They are 250 times more impact-resistant than glass is and can withstand extreme weather.[69]
Three-dimensional sponge on printed façades optimizes a building’s thermal performance in various climate conditions. It works by integrating air cavities for thermal insulation. One manufacturer describes this material as offering “thermal conductivity along with electrical isolation. It has excellent conformability to irregular surfaces and a clean release from most materials. Available in multiple thicknesses to fill various air gap heights. Its cellular structure provides extremely compliant gap filler.”[70]
Made of sawdust and concrete mixed together, it is lighter than concrete and reduces emissions from transportation. Sawdust, a waste product, replaces some of the energy-intensive components of traditional concrete. It can be formed into traditional shapes, such as blocks, bricks, and pavers.[71]
This substance is three times harder than steel, four times harder than fused silica glass, and 85 percent as hard as sapphire. It is used in bulletproof glass, infrared domes in spaceships, space stations, skyscrapers, and vehicle cockpits.[72]
Researchers have found a way to strip the lignin (an abundant and natural constituent of the cell walls of almost all plants on dry land) out of wood and replace it with a synthetic polymer, making it 85 percent transparent. The thermal properties are much better than glass, so large panels of transparent wood would be cheap and useful in constructing large buildings.[73]
These superefficient windows consist of three layers of glass with krypton gas in between and do a better job of stopping heat from leaving buildings than conventional window glass does. Krypton gas is a better but more expensive insulator than traditional argon.[74]
Researchers have announced the creation of a new foil-like material so dark it can hardly be seen by human eyes. Its component tubes are each ten thousand times smaller than a human hair and, when put together, they are so densely packed that the result is one of the darkest substances known: up to 99.96 percent of available light is absorbed into the material. It can increase the absorption of heat in materials used in concentrated solar power technology as well as in military applications, such as thermal camouflage, and in certain construction materials, like house wrap.[75]
Vacuum insulation panels make up a porous core material that is encased in an airtight envelope. The air trapped in the core material is evacuated, and the envelope is then heat-sealed. The core material prevents the panels from crumbling when air is removed. Some VIPs are predicted to maintain more than 80 percent of their thermal performance even after thirty years.[76]
Panels for wood-framed homes may soon require 40 percent less wood product and may generate 98 percent less waste. A combination of insulation on the exterior and spray polyurethane foam (SPF) in the wall cavity functions as a weather-resistant barrier.[77]
Researchers have developed a new way to control “elastic waves” that could protect structures from seismic events. A team of scientists worked a geometric microstructure pattern into a material made of steel plate, so that it can bend or refract elastic and acoustic waves away from a target during earthquakes. According to researchers, this technique will save structures from damage caused by earthquakes or tsunamis, which could save lives in residential buildings and other infrastructures.[78]
Developed with the goal of obtaining a composite, using abundant local material, that would improve brick strength, wool and a natural polymer found in seaweed was added to the clay of bricks. They become 37 percent stronger than other bricks, more resistant to cold and moisture, and are sustainable and nontoxic. They also dry hard, and since they don’t need to be fired like traditional bricks,[79] they save energy.
Inventors, researchers, and engineers around the world continue to discover alternatives to traditional construction materials and techniques. Though many we have listed are being used, more are still in research, development, and testing phases. These revolutionary technologies and materials will change the way we think about and build structures today and tomorrow.
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