Europe's Largest 3D-Printed Housing Project Completed in Denmark

A team in Denmark has completed what it calls Europe's largest 3D-printed housing project, a community of 36 self-contained student apartments named Skovsporet. Located in Holstebro, it was created by SAGA Space Architects with 3DCP and a construction-printer company called COBOD, and commissioned by an affordable housing organization for a local university campus. In 3D-printed construction, a machine extrudes a cement-like mixture layer by layer to build up walls, instead of traditional bricklaying or poured-concrete forming.

The 36 apartments sit across six single-story buildings that share courtyards, gardens, walking paths, and bicycle parking. Ninety percent of the trees already on the wooded site were preserved during construction. The shells were built mainly with a COBOD BOD3 3D printer, which needed only three people on site. Printing time fell sharply as work progressed, from several weeks for the first building of six apartments to just five days for the last.

Once printing was finished, human builders added roofs, doors, windows, furniture, and everything else needed to turn each concrete shell into a home. "This student housing project proves that 3D printing is no longer just an experiment," said Sebastian Aristotelis, co-founder and lead architect of SAGA Space Architects. "We have gone from printing small prototypes to creating 36 real homes and an entire community. That is the scale where technology starts to matter as a serious tool for architecture."

Each apartment measures 40 to 50 sq m (431 to 538 sq ft) and has its own kitchen, study area, lounge, bathroom, and sleeping area, with large windows and skylights for daylight. Wood, cork, and drywall soften the ribbed concrete texture left by the layered printing, and some sleeping areas are raised like a loft bed, leaving study space underneath.

SAGA Space Architects said it kept the project within a strict cost framework for social housing and plans to apply lessons learned to future projects. Skovsporet took 12 months to complete, including work by human builders, and students are expected to move into the apartments in the coming weeks.