The School of Architecture of Tsinghua University successfully built a 3D printed concrete bookstore in Shanghai Wisdom Bay Innovation Park. This building resembling a Bluetooth headset will be China’s first 3D printed concrete bookstore. The building will take about one month to build from material testing, ground foundation, main body printing to electrical installation and interior decoration. After completion, it will provide readers with a quiet reading atmosphere space.
(Source: Wisdom Bay Innovation Park)
3D printing in Wisdom Bay
Wisdom Bay Innovation Park is located in Shanghai and is known as the first popular science and technology park in Shanghai. There are more than 300 technology companies from all over the world engaged in high-tech projects such as 3D printing and artificial intelligence. It is worth noting that Wisdom Bay is also home to the only 3D printing museum in the world.
In 2019, a 26.3 meter-long and 3.6 meter-wide 3D printed concrete bridge, hailed the world’s largest at the time, was completed and installed in the park. The project was also carried out by Tsinghua University, which 3D printed the concrete components in 450 hours.
Constructing the bookstore
The project team used “fiber concrete” as the 3D printing material to construct the bookstore in order to resist compression and earthquake effects. Equipped with an underfloor heating system, the building has a floor space of 30 square meters and is able to accommodate 15 people at any one time.
The team printed the structure in three parts. The main outer round wall was printed in-situ, while the roof and the remaining part of the outer wall were printed separately. Now the printing of the bookstore has been completed and is open to the public
(Source: Wisdom Bay Innovation Park)
The bookstore “shell” has two different textures. One is the normal printing texture, forming a layer by layer of texture; the other is the texture of the doorway reflecting the uneven changes, carefully designed by the design team, these shapes are all designed in the computer, and converted into codes, using a robotic arm print it out.
(Source: Wisdom Bay Innovation Park)
Open a new chapter in 3D printing
The use of concrete 3D printing in the construction industry will in many cases be cheaper, faster and produce less waste than traditional construction techniques. Optimizing the concrete process is one of the important 3D printing research projects of the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University, as is the development of new concrete compositions with rapid additive manufacturing and innovative printing methods.
Post time: Feb-20-2021