Habitat for Humanity debuts the world’s first 3D-printed owner-occupied home in Virginia

由专筑网郑倩华，小R编译

12月21日，一栋外形普通的三居室家庭住房在弗吉尼亚的威廉斯堡亮相，成为世界首个3D打印自住房。虽然外观普通，这幢1200平方英尺的房屋是国际仁人家园（“Habitat for Humanity”）借助大型3D打印机在美国东海岸建造的第一个项目。

不过，严格说来，由Alquist 公司和国际仁人家园合作完成的这个项目并不是国际仁人家园借助3D打印技术完成的第一个居住项目。就在几周前，国际仁人家园在美国阿里桑那州完成一座面积1738平方英尺的建筑，采用龙门式按需建造打印机（BOD 2）。不过，威廉斯堡的住宅仅花费22小时打印，将标准建筑流程缩短了约4周。

Earlier this week, additive construction company Alquist and Habitat for Humanity formally handed over the keys to the new owner of an otherwise ordinary-looking three-bedroom single-family home in Williamsburg, Virginia. Despite appearances, however, that building was recently completed as the first Habitat project on the East Coast to be constructed with the aid of a massive 3D printer. The 1,200-square abode at 129 Forest Heights Road in Williamsburg’s Ewell neighborhood is also being billed as the world’s first 3D-printed owner-occupied home.
Despite the impressive superlative, the project, spearheaded by the Newport News-headquartered Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg in partnership with Alquist, isn’t technically the first 3D-printed Habitat project in the United States. Announced just weeks ahead of the Williamsburg project this past summer was a 1,738-square-foot Habitat dwelling built with a gantry-style Build on Demand Printer (BOD 2) in Tempe, Arizona. (Alquist is not involved with that Habitat Central Arizona-led undertaking.) In total, it took 22 hours to print the Williamsburg Habitat home, slashing the standard construction schedule by roughly four weeks.


Courtesy Alquist

这座房子的新屋主是April和她的儿子。作为一名当地宾馆洗衣设备主管，April的收入只有当地平均收入的80%，购买传统住房对她来说力所不能及。

今后，她将向国际仁人家园偿还无息贷款，房贷将不会超过她收入的30%，包括房产税和保险。

The Williamsburg project’s new owner is April, a first-time homeowner who will be residing in the 3D-printed digs with her 13-year-old son. As previously detailed, April has worked full-time as a laundry facility supervisor at a local hotel for several years but receives an income that’s less than 80 percent of the area median income, putting traditional homeownership out of reach.
“Going forward, her monthly mortgage payments will be no more than 30 percent of her income, including her real estate taxes and homeowner’s insurance,” elaborated Janet V. Green, CEO for Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, in a statement released over the summer when the project was first announced. “Once the house construction is complete, she will close on her new home with a local attorney and repay her no-interest mortgage to us here at the local Habitat, illustrating Habitat for Humanity’s objective to give families a hand up rather than a handout.”


Courtesy Alquist

根据国际仁人家园的房屋购买条款，April之前几个月还在房屋建筑工地以及另一个项目上付出了300个小时的人力资产和志愿者时间。

房屋具有抗飓风性能，并装有吉尼亚理工大学开发的专利监控系统，借助混凝土结构本身的热性能，帮助房屋优化能源使用。 April还从Alquist公司收到一个小型的特殊3D打印机，用于房屋日常维修和改造时的打印。

As required by the Habitat Homebuyer Program, April logged a total of 300 sweat equity or volunteer hours at both the construction site and at a local Habitat ReStore over the past several months. At the December 21 dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by numerous local and state officials and their representatives, April told the assembled crowd: “This is all for my son. If you truly believe in something, keep trying and you can do it.”
Once April is settled into the EarthCraft-certified, tornado-resistant home, she’ll enjoy additional savings thanks to a proprietary, Raspberry Pi-based monitoring system developed by Virginia Tech that, among other things, will help to optimize energy consumption, aided by the thermal properties of the concrete structure itself. There are also plans to outfit the home with solar panels. April has also received a special (and far less colossal) 3D printer from Alquist that can be used for basic household repairs and remodeling jobs as needed.


Courtesy Alquist

由Zachary Mannheimer于2020年创立的Alquist公司目标是将大型3D打印技术应用于经济适用房短缺的美国农村地区的房屋。该公司同时也和弗吉尼亚理工大学合作，在里士满建造了美国第一个3D打印的公私合营房屋。

除弗吉尼亚州外，公司还将目光投向了阿肯色州、加利福尼亚州、爱荷华州、北达科他州和宾夕法尼亚州的农村社区，以3D打印为基础的住宅建设可以比传统的砖块建筑更快、成本更低。这些项目将与合作工作室Atlas Community Studios共同完成，该工作室是一个由Mannheimer创立的“完全独立的就业与经济发展团队”，十分有趣的是，Mannheimer并非拥有传统的建筑技术背景，Mannheimer是一位成长于宾夕法尼亚的纽约客，目前居住在爱荷华州，他并非出身于百老汇剧院，这对于其最新的公司名称而言，有着戏剧性的意义。

Established in 2020 by Zachary Mannheimer with the goal of bringing large-scale 3D-printing technology to affordable housing-strapped swaths of rural America, Alquist has future projects planned for outside of Virginia, where the company has also teamed with Virginia Tech to construct America’s first 3D-printed, public-private partnership-funded home in Richmond’s Midlothian neighborhood. At this week’s dedication ceremony, Mannheimer referred to Virginia as “the leader in 3D printing home construction, hands down.” Beyond Virginia, Alquist has its sights set on rural communities in Arkansas, California, Iowa, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania for 3D printer-based homebuilding efforts that can be carried out more swiftly and at a lesser cost than conventional stick-built construction. Those projects will be realized with partner company Atlas Community Studios, which is described as a “wholly independent placemaking and economic development group” and was also founded by Mannheimer. Interestingly, Mannheimer doesn’t come from a traditional construction or tech background—in fact, far from it. Now based in Des Moines, Iowa, the Pennsylvania-reared erstwhile New Yorker’s roots are in the world of off-Broadway theater, which makes sense given the dramaturgical roots of his latest venture’s name.