NEW YORK FIRM TAKES 3D PRINTING TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Most homes are built block by block, or brick by brick. But a demo house in Calverton, New York, was constructed scan by scan — its walls made using a giant three-dimensional printer. The demo house was built by construction firm SQ4D, to show the public and industry what was possible. Now the company is putting one up for sale — a still to-be-built house in the nearby town of Riverhead, which has been listed on property site Zillow at US$299,000. With a detached garage, the house will cover some 1,400 square feet. The footings, foundation and slab, along with the walls, will be entirely made with the 3D printer. “We instruct the machine to go around and follow your floor plan each pass as we go by. We're constantly building up,” said Kirk Andersen, the director of operations for SQ4D.