Three D printing has been utilized in recent times to create everything from homes to businesses and even bridges. Dubai is set to build the world's first 3D-printed mosque.
Dubai Government officials said the structure will accommodate 600 worshippers and cover 2,000 square meters over two floors, with construction expected to begin by the end of the year and expected to complete in the first quarter of 2025.
We elected to 3D-print the mosque because it s a new and innovative technology that can potentially save time and resources compared to traditional building methods, Alhalyan Alsuwaidi said. IACAD declined to name the company responsible for the construction.
Construction of buildings using 3D printing necessitates large printing machines that are programmed with the design information. They extract the construction material from a nozzle, building up the structure in layers. The majority of 3D-printed structures are made from concrete, but it is possible to print using other materials, such as clay.
Dubai has set out to become the world's 3D printing capital, and in 2018 it launched a 3D printing strategy that predicted for 25 percent of the emirate's new construction to be 3D-printed by 2030.
By 2019 it has held the world record for the largest 3D-printed structure, standing 9.5 meters tall with an area of 640 square meters, and being home to the first 3D-printed office and a 3D-printed drone research laboratory.
But new 3D-printed buildings are popping up across the globe, including housing for refugees in Jordan and for homeless people in Austin, Texas, to entire complexes of buildings, such as the 3,800 square feet 353 square meter Camp Swift military training center, and entire neighborhoods, such as the New Story project in Tabasco, Mexico, that will provide homes for families living in poverty.
Theo Salet is the dean of the built environment department at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. He is dedicated to modernizing the construction industry through technology like 3D printing.
In the context of a lack of skilled construction workers, an energy transition, and a need for the industry to become more sustainable, he said.
It will help reduce the cost of construction, reduce the cost of failures, solve the problem of a lack of construction workers, and allow us to rethink our designs in terms of sustainability, he said.
He contends that a project like Dubai's proposed mosque is the next phase in 3D printed architectural design, but anticipates it will face challenges.
Realizing a large and eye-catching project like this is quite a task, of a scale yet unknown, he said. With no doubt the 3D printing will work, rendering drawings make promises that must be possible to meet in practice a project of this scale and ambition is, in my opinion, a project to learn from and mistakes should be possible.