Europe’s largest 3D-printed building is scheduled for completion in July in Heidelberg, Germany.
Spearheaded by Kraus Group, a local real estate developer, investor, and manager, this 6,600-sf project is being constructed for Heidelberg IT Management GmbH and Company KG, a cloud and data center provider. The building will contain an IT server hotel.
PERI 3D Construction is using a BOD2 3D construction printer to print the building’s walls, which PERI estimates will take only 140 hours to complete, or the equivalent of printing four square meters of building per hour.
The printer robots are provided by COBOD, which produced Europe’s first 3D-printed building in 2017 and has sold more than 65 3D printers worldwide. Denmark-based COBOD’s key shareholders include General Electric, CEMEX, Holcim Group, and PERI, the latter of which first used a BOD2 machine in 2020.
Looking to print taller buildings
The Heidelberg project is 162 ft long by 121 ft wide by 30 ft high. Its construction started on March 31. Hans-Jörg Kraus, managing partner of Kraus Group, said in a prepared statement that this project represents his firm’s commitment to innovative and sustainable construction methods.
Henrik Lund-Nielsen, COBOD’s founder and GM, added that the two key benefits of 3D printing for construction are speed of execution and design freedom, noting that other projects his company’s printers have been used for include residential housing in Africa and offices in Germany.
The Heidelberg data center’s architects are SSV Architekten and Mense Korte. Heidelberg Materials is supplying an estimated 450 tons of its i.tech 3D printing mortar for this project, which is 100 percent recyclable and contains a binder with a carbon footprint that’s 55 percent lower than Portland cement.
Construction Europe magazine’s website reports that without 3D printing, the unusual design of the building’s walls would have required customized form work. COBOD’s 3D printing system is currently limited to around 9 meters in height, and the company is reportedly working on new technology that will allow its robots to print at taller heights. (The world’s tallest 3D-printed building to date is the three-story, 9.9-meter-high Dar Arkan villa in Saudi Arabia.)
The cost of the Heidelberg project was not disclosed.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA Course: Historic Masonry — Restoration and Renovation
Historic restoration and preservation efforts are accelerating throughout the U.S., thanks in part to available tax credits, awards programs, and green building trends. While these projects entail many different building components and systems, façade restoration—as the public face of these older structures—is a key focus. Earn 1.0 AIA learning unit by taking this free course from Building Design+Construction.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA Course: Enclosure strategies for better buildings
Sustainability and energy efficiency depend not only on the overall design but also on the building's enclosure system. Whether it's via better air-infiltration control, thermal insulation, and moisture control, or more advanced strategies such as active façades with automated shading and venting or novel enclosure types such as double walls, Building Teams are delivering more efficient, better performing, and healthier building enclosures.
| Aug 11, 2010
Glass Wall Systems Open Up Closed Spaces
Sectioning off large open spaces without making everything feel closed off was the challenge faced by two very different projects—one an upscale food market in Napa Valley, the other a corporate office in Southern California. Movable glass wall systems proved to be the solution in both projects.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA course: MEP Technologies For Eco-Effective Buildings
Sustainable building trends are gaining steam, even in the current economic downturn. More than five billion square feet of commercial space has either been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program or is registered with LEED. It is projected that the green building market's dollar value could more than double by 2013, to as muc...
| Aug 11, 2010
Thrown For a Loop in China
While the Bird's Nest and Water Cube captured all the TV coverage during the Beijing Olympics in August, the Rem Koolhaas-designed CCTV Headquarters in Beijing—known as the “Drunken Towers” or “Big Shorts,” for its unusual shape—is certain to steal the show when it opens next year.
| Aug 11, 2010
World's tallest all-wood residential structure opens in London
At nine stories, the Stadthaus apartment complex in East London is the world’s tallest residential structure constructed entirely in timber and one of the tallest all-wood buildings on the planet. The tower’s structural system consists of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels pieced together to form load-bearing walls and floors. Even the elevator and stair shafts are constructed of prefabricated CLT.
| Aug 11, 2010
Integrated Project Delivery builds a brave, new BIM world
Three-dimensional information, such as that provided by building information modeling, allows all members of the Building Team to visualize the many components of a project and how they work together. BIM and other 3D tools convey the idea and intent of the designer to the entire Building Team and lay the groundwork for integrated project delivery.
Concrete | Aug 11, 2010
8 Innovations That Will Rock Your Next Concrete Project
If you think you've seen it all when it comes to concrete construction, then you haven't sat down with Blaine Brownell. The architect-turned-blogger-turned-author has become the industry's foremost expert in everything that is unconventional and provocative in the building products field. For the past eight years, this LEED Accredited Professional, BD+C “40 Under 40” winner, and vis...
| Aug 11, 2010
Let There Be Daylight
The new public library in Champaign, Ill., is drawing 2,100 patrons a day, up from 1,600 in 2007. The 122,600-sf facility, which opened in January 2008, certainly benefits from amenities that the old 40,000-sf library didn't have—electronic check-in and check-out, new computers, an onsite coffeehouse.
| Aug 11, 2010
BIM school, green school: California's newest high-performance school
Nestled deep in the Napa Valley, the city of American Canyon is one of a number of new communities in Northern California that have experienced tremendous growth in the last five years. Located 42 miles northeast of San Francisco, American Canyon had a population of just over 9,000 in 2000; by 2008, that figure stood at 15,276, with 28% of the population under age 18.
