A couple has moved into Europe's first fully 3D printed house

A Dutch couple, Elize Lutz and Harrie Dekker have become the first in Europe to move into a fully 3D printed house. The house, which is shaped like a boulder, is the first legally habitable property with loadbearing walls made using 3D printing technology. The house is very high-tech and lacks a traditional key to the front door, with a couple using an app to unlock the door.

The homeowners moved in recently, and Lutz says the home has the feel of a bunker, noting that it feels safe and it's beautiful. The boulder shape the house was built in would be difficult and expensive to construct via traditional methods. The property is the first of five homes planned by a construction company called Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix for a piece of land by the Beatrix canal in a suburb of Bosrijk called Eindhoven.

The 3D printed home has 94 square meters of living space and is the first legally habitable and commercially rented home with load-bearing walls made using a 3D printer nozzle. The home is the first completed unit of Project Milestone, a partnership with the Eindhoven University of Technology and the Vesteda housing corporation. Initially, the home was supposed to be completed and available to rent in 2019. However, there were challenges with the architect's design involving overhanging external walls that cause delays.

The 3D printing of the home used a large robotic arm with a nozzle that extruded a specific formulation of cement that had the texture of whipped cream. The structure was printed according to an architect's design and added layer by layer to create the wall increasing its strength.

One look at the structure, and it's clear that there are some imperfections in how the surface looks. Areas where the nozzle had had to be changed after operation show changes in pattern in the wall. The home has 24 concrete elements printed layer by layer at a plant before being transported by truck to the building site and placed on a foundation. The roof and window frames were fitted at the home's location.