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The 3D Printed Homes of the Future Are Giant Eggs on Mars:
It doesn’t get much more futuristic than living on Mars—and guess what? There’s a 3D printed home for that, too. In fact, there are a few; last year saw the conclusion of a contest held by NASA called the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge.
[...] The top prize ($500,000) went to AI Space Factory, a New York-based architecture and construction technologies company focused on building for space exploration. Their dual-shell, four-level design is called Marsha, and unlike Martian habitats we’ve seen on the big screen or read about in sci-fi novels, it’s neither a dome nor an underground bunker. In fact, it sits fully above ground and it looks like a cross between a hive and a giant egg.
The team chose the hive-egg shape very deliberately, saying that it’s not only optimized to handle the pressure and temperature demands of the Martian atmosphere, but building it with a 3D printer will be easier because the printer won’t have to move around as much as it would to build a structure with a larger footprint. That means less risk of errors and a faster building speed.
The building material would combine basalt fiber and bioplastics made from plants grown on Mars.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 10 2020, @09:23PM
I'm only thinking about the Mars habitat case. The first ones are going to have to be very sparse. I don't expect multiple couch pieces. Just something practical to sit on.
On Earth I think round homes are probably a bad idea, generally. Rectangular rooms seem to solve a lot of problems. If other shapes worked generally, we would see more of them. But we don't. Or only in more expensive houses with lots of space to waste.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.