CTRL+P: On Additive Manufacturing Hybrids

In 2021, a 3d printed house was contingent for a real estate deal that would make the prospective owners the inhabitants of one of the first 3d printed house in the United States. Listed at nearly 50% less than all other new construction houses on the market in its area, financial incentives of additive manufacturing (large format 3d printing) seemirrefutable. However, additive manufacturing’s stereotypeas a concrete-hungry material is not irrefutable. Most commercial printing uses concrete, a non-renewable resource, making it a hard sell for environment defenders. In the time it takes to type this sentence the global building industry will have poured more than 19,000 bathtubs of concrete. With concrete being the second most widely used substance on the planet (second only to water)1 we, as architects are long overdue to look for alternatives to both its production from raw material to formwork practices to its post-consumer life. However, recent innovations in additive manufacturing have brought issues of sustainability to the forefront as advancements in the use of reusable, recyclable, low-carbon,bio-based and site-specific materials are rapidly developing, and experimentation is occurring at the building scale.CTRL+P embraces and develops the potentials that additive manufacturing offers when paired with standard construction types. Interested in material economy despite its multi-system approach, the research more broadly looks to unusual overlaps between standard practice and additive manufacturing as a means to alleviate the “all concrete” ethos that has dominated the industry to date. CTRL+P challenges three myths associated with additive manufacturing: