3D printer guarantees homes in 20 days at affordable prices

The first house built in Portugal using a 3D printer is a 90 square meter T2. This technology, of Danish origin, arrived in the country through the hands of Havelar to respond to the country’s housing crisis. The solution imported by the Vilar do Pinheiro company guarantees high speed of execution and affordable prices. In less than 20 days, he assures, the dream becomes reality. It takes 18 hours to print the structure (not continuous) and two weeks of assembly, in a mixed model of off-site construction (in the factory) and on-site (work site), explains Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, one of the founders of Havelar. The cost of a T2 is also appealing: 150 thousand euros.

The model house is the materialization of a project that took shape at the beginning of last year by the hands of businessman José Maria Ferreira (owner of Ecosteel), Patrick Eichiner, a specialist in the real estate sector, and architect Rodrigo Vilas-Boas. This week, it was presented to the market, but has already attracted “several expressions of interest”, particularly from municipalities, says Eichiner without, however, identifying potential customers. However, he guarantees, these demonstrations “already allow us to say that we will have a scaled project this year”. This is Havelar’s objective, to build residential communities, with 50/60 houses, for public and private developers, and land owners. The private client is not in the business sphere.

For José Maria Ferreira, Havelar has “a very big challenge, which is the democratization of architecture”. The idea “is not just to build a house at affordable prices, it is also to have beautiful projects that go beyond the concept of social housing”. Vilas-Boas guarantees that the 3D system allows “design freedom” and construction flexibility. As an example, Havelar has two sketches of houses, one by the Portuguese architect Aires Mateus and the other by the Japanese studio Kengo Kuma and Associates. The printer acquired from Cobod is capable of building structures of up to three floors and 50 houses per year, but the development of the business may dictate the purchase of more robots. Havelar holds the exclusive representation of Cobod in Portugal.

The founders of this new company are convinced that construction automation is the future of the sector. As they point out, it responds to the chronic lack of labor, as it reduces the need for workers by 60%, and is 70% faster than the traditional method. It can also be a solution to mitigate the environmental problems of this industry, as it produces 80% less waste and can incorporate local materials, on a path to zero carbon. According to Eichiner, Havelar already has an accumulated investment of five million euros and has a team of ten employees.

Currently, there are 75 printers from the Danish company spread across 35 countries. According to Henrik Lund-Nielsen, founder of Cobod, the first building built with these robots appeared in 2017, in Copenhagen. Three years later, this technology arrived in Belgium and, since then, it has conquered markets such as the USA, Japan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Canada… Lund-Nielsen highlights the printer’s ability to build personalized residential, industrial and commercial buildings. For the entrepreneur, “this is the beginning of robotic construction. Robots will paint, isolate, and take on many more functions. Building will be easier and more economical.”

*Dinheiro Vivo journalist