German-based architecture and design studio Beta Realities has developed the “Collective Parts” initiative, a design and technology platform for enabling the construction of affordable 3D printed housing. The project has been recognized as one of the winners of Inititative99 by ICON, a global architecture competition aimed at reimagining affordable housing that can be built for under $99,000. The other winners of the open category are MTspace Studio from New Zealand and For Everyday Life from the United Kingdom. The competition also highlights contributions from students as a separate category, featuring Casa Fami by IAAC from Spain, Juan Felipe Molano from Colombia, and Victoria Roznowski from Germany.
The ”Collective Parts” initiative combines scalable 3D printing technologies with a software approach that helps include future homeowners in a collective planning process. To create a user-friendly process, Beta Realities has developed a kit of parts that allows other flexibility within a participatory approach and an efficient and scalable construction process.
The end-to-end process begins with the initial building design, which configures the homes using functional objects and intelligent building parts. Within set timeframes and budgets, the software also allows for flexible neighborhood layouts that encourage community involvement and encouragement. Through AI-assisted planning, multiple uses can form urban neighborhoods collectively, generating engineered multi-family home projects complete with area schedules, floor plans, cost estimates, and embodied carbon calculations. The software then feeds the appropriate information directly to 3D printers on-site for automated construction of on-demand housing.
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To react to newly arising challenges of the housing market, Collective Parts is conceived as an interactive planning platform, using machine learning and state-of-the-art computation to anticipate user flows, changes in operations and material life cycles. We generate highly flexible interior layouts, based on modular building blocks. - Marvin Bratke, founding partner of Beta Realities
Last year, Beta Realities, with Urban Beta, was selected as part of ArchDaily’s 2023 New Practices, an annual award showcasing emerging innovators and original thinkers redefining the architecture field. ICON, another company highlighted as ArchDaily’s New Practices of 2021, has gained international recognition for pioneering large-scale 3D printing, launching various construction systems, and having completed several projects demonstrating this new technology's capabilities. Among them, a collaboration with BIG and Lennar resulted in a 100-3D-printed-homes community in Texas, as well as an ongoing research project with NASA for developing autonomous construction technologies for creating structures on the Moon and even Mars.
