The latest installment of our Dezeen x MINI Living video series explores a plan to build multi-storey housing with 3D-printers, a technique that the project's architects claim will enable people to design and build their own houses quickly and easily.
The Eindhoven University of Technology, together with local architecture studio Houben & Van Mierlo Architecten, is planning to create the world's first commercial 3D-printed housing project, which will be made available to rent through real-estate firm Vesteda.
Entitled Project Milestone, the development will see the construction of five multi-level homes in Meerhoven, in Eindhoven. The first of these houses is expected to be completed and liveable by 2019.
Project Milestone plans to 3D-print concrete houses that will be made available to rent The residences will be produced one after the other, allowing the architects to learn from the fabrication of each. Building elements are being printed at the university's research facility but the team aims to build the final house on site.
The houses will feature curved walls with balcony recesses and deep-set windows and doors. According to the architects, the development references "the menhir-like structures of Stonehenge".
"We wanted to make multiple-storey houses in order to get a really nice landscape of building volumes," says Jelle Houben of Houben & Van Mierlo Architecten.
The residences will be multiple stories and reference menhir-like structure...