The first 3D printed house in India built by IIT-Madras startup Tvasta was inaugurated on 27th April in the campus. It’s a 600-sq-feet house that was designed by special software and printed using concrete 3D printing technology. A house can be built in five days with this technology, whereas it takes 4-5 months in the conventional way. But it reduces your cost also up to 30 percent and increases the life of the house upto almost 50 years.

What is Concrete 3D Printing Technology?

It’s an automated manufacturing method for constructing a three-dimensional real-life structure. In this method, a 3D concrete printer is used, which accepts a computerized three-dimensional design from the user and creates the structure layer-by-layer.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman was also at the inauguration of this 3D printed house virtually and she said “India definitely needs such solutions which do not require much time. Conventional housing requires timing, materials, logistics, transporting of material, and so on. But if this technology can produce houses in different locales at five days per house, it would not be a big challenge to build 100 million houses by 2022.

IIT-Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi said that the machine can be rented for house construction just like farmers rent borewells. This machine offers large-scale construction, high quality, and price assurance for the customers.

According to Aditya VS, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tvasta, “this technology can enable deep personalization of construction for the individual. It also can ensure that affordable, good quality is available to all Indians with a technology that is built in India.”

In an elaborate blog on its website, Tvasta team explains the origin and execution of this idea. 

In the early days, of all the core sub-technologies of ‘Concrete 3D Printing’, Material – particularly its formulation and related research – was the start-up’s pivot point. A Desktop 3D Printer was developed towards this in 2016, for testing buildability and concrete flow. Subsequently, in 2018, a Proof-of-Concept structure (alternately, ‘India’s FIRST 3D Printed Concrete Structure’) was constructed using an in-house R&D Printer. With the establishment of basic technological viability through this structure, the road ahead for Tvasta saw the company undertake the construction of a full-scale house through 3D Printing. An endeavour of this nature for the start-up would, essentially, break barriers and open up the gates for ‘Concrete 3D Printing’ in the Construction Industry. Moreover, the project would serve as an unmistakable technology demonstrator – a model for future processes.

To this end, the Tvasta NIRMAAN – an industry-standard Concrete 3D Printer – was developed to complement the substantial volume and speed requirements of printing a standard house – the printer in question has a build volume of 2.2 m x 1.8 m x 1.5 m and a printing speed of 100 mm/s. Further, by implementing a multi-pallet system for rapid printing and development, Tvasta took a giant leap in 3D Printing Technology in the country. A brand-new operations team was set up dedicated to printing the structure. The ‘C3DP Team’ or ‘Concrete 3D Printing Team’ consisted of the most untiring engineers who worked unanimously with the 3D Printer throughout the course of the project.

With the machine in place, planning the most awaited project for Tvasta – the construction of ‘India’s FIRST 3D Printed Concrete House’ – commenced in Feb 2020. Noteworthy is the fact that the project was shouldered by Tvasta in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, USA – an NGO that is helping people worldwide realize their dream of owning a home. The onset of COVID-19 and a nation-wide lockdown temporarily halted project operations; however, Tvasta’s symbiosis with its existent ecosystem along with the diligence of the entire team (working-from-home) ensured seamless translation of ideas on-ground post the cessation of lock-down. Printing commenced in August, 2020 (with necessary safety precautions) and took a modular course facilitating the assembly of the house inside IIT Madras, India. A consistent and time-conscious workforce was instrumental in wrapping-up the entire project from printing to end-assembly in three weeks. 

Along with this, this house can also solve certain housing problems like sanitation, disaster-time rehabilitation, and projects to construct military bunkers.