World First 3D Printed School Built In Africa

A 3D printed school, reportedly the world’s first, has been completed in Malawi, Africa, and has welcomed students through its doors. The school was built using a 3D construction printer from Danish 3D printing construction firm COBOD as part of a project with 14Trees

BY Realty Plus
Published - Friday, 02 Jul, 2021

World First 3D Printed School Built In Africa

A 3D printed school, reportedly the world’s first, has been completed in Malawi, Africa, and has welcomed students through its doors. The school was built using a 3D construction printer from Danish 3D printing construction firm COBOD as part of a project with 14Trees, a joint venture company of building materials specialist LafargeHolcim and CDC Group, the UK’s publicly owned impact investor. Printed in just 18 hours, the school was born out of a need to address Africa’s huge deficit in school provision, with UNICEF estimating a shortage of 36,000 classrooms in Malawi alone. According to 14Trees, this infrastructure gap could be bridged within the next decade alone using 3D construction printing technology, which the company claims has already been well-received in the country. The technology combines a proprietary ink developed by LafargeHolcim with a BOD2 robotic 3D construction printer provided by COBOD, and is expected to significantly reduce the time and cost of building homes and schools in Malawi. The 3D printing technology supposedly also reduces the carbon footprint for building new homes by up to 70 percent through optimized material use. The Malawi school’s walls were printed in just 18 hours, with the building spanning 56 square meters, thanks to the BOD2’s capability to print concrete structures up to 10 meters in length and width, and three meters in height. Children have now moved into the classrooms to begin lessons, and the Director of Education in Malawi is reportedly impressed with the school. COBOD’s robotic construction 3D printers have been previously deployed for several high-profile additive manufacturing construction projects, including the building of the first 3D printed commercial apartment building in Wallenhausen, Germany. The project was headed up by Germany-based construction company PERI Group, which has extensive experience in operating the BOD2 in various European projects. Another of these projects involved erecting Germany’s first “market-ready” 3D printed residential building, a two-storey house located in North Rhine-Westphalia. Additionally, the company’s involvement in the successful 3D printing of the first “record-tall” 10-meter concrete wind turbine tower base last year alongside LafargeHolcim and GE Renewable Energy was presented to US President Joe Biden at a recent Climate Summit.