A firm focused on 3D printed concrete is getting ready to print its first major structures in the United States. Contour Crafting’s gantry-supported 3D concrete printing robot is set to print sometime in the next few months, the firm’s board chairman Werner Bittner told ENR at the triennial Bauma equipment show in Munich, Germany, held April 8-14.
The plan is for six concrete structures, each at 60 sq. meters, to be built in a large city on the west coast of the United States, which Bittner wouldn’t name. Contour Crafting is a private venture set up by the University of Southern California professor and engineer Behrokh Khoshnevis; it is 30 percent owned by global formwork giant Doka. Bittner is Contour’s chairman of the board of directors as well as an executive board member at Umdasch Group Ventures; the family-owned Umdasch Group is Doka’s parent company and is headquartered in Amstetten, Austria.