Innovative planters and seating designed by architecture and landscape architecture students and 3D-printed using alternative cementitious materials (non-Portland cement) are now on permanent display at Reiman Gardens in Ames.

Newly installed planters brimming with vibrant gold and purple flowers greeted visitors to the Iowa State University Student Innovation Center at the conclusion of the spring 2024 semester.

Just steps from the Marston Water Tower, yellow trumpet daffodils, lavender grape hyacinths and green rosemary plants announced the arrival of spring on campus. But the planters in which the flowers blossomed proved equally eye catching.

These white concrete vessels, produced with a 3D printer by ISU undergraduates and their professor, merged technology and artistry in innovative ways, offering a glimpse into the potential 3D printing has to change construction and infrastructure. Part of a multifaceted research project, the ongoing work was summarized in an exhibit during the Student Innovation Center’s third annual IGNITE Showcase.

Shelby Doyle, an associate professor of architecture and the Stan G. Thurston Professor in Design Build whose studio class designed the planters, has collaborated with a team of academics, students and industry partners to experiment with concrete 3D printing.

The Iowa State research has received numerous grants and has encompassed a wide range of approaches aimed at developing the nascent technology into a reliable and useful tool for industry. As the intricately designed planters prove, 3D printing can produce objects of striking aesthetic and practical value. But big questions remain about how the technology fits into the construction, housing and landscaping ecosystem.

What are sustainable 3D printing materials? How can architects and construction professionals gain experience with 3D printing? How can 3D printing reduce construction costs and material waste and allow faster response to natural disasters?

Iowa State faculty seek to answer these questions and others as part of a wide-ranging collaborative research effort known as the 3D Affordable Innovative Technologies (AIT) Housing Project.

The effort gained steam in 2022 when the Iowa Economic Development Authority awarded the research team — led by Pete Evans, assistant professor of industrial design, and Julie Robison, assistant director of the College of Design’s Institute for Design Research and Outreach — $2.1 million in grants to work with Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge and private construction firm Brunow Contracting.

The grants are funding equipment and materials; research and testing of materials and technologies; curriculum development; and demonstration builds to understand the challenges and value of 3D printing with concrete.

“This also includes identifying areas of improvement, such as reducing the carbon footprint of cementitious materials, as a method to fully realize the potential of additive construction (3D printing),” Doyle said.

From planters to disaster response

 

A demonstration shed features traditional wood-frame construction juxtaposed with 3D-printed concrete walls and a partial facade of bricks made with ground decommissioned wind turbines and corn stover ash.

Additive 3D printing is the process by which an automated machine deposits a material according to design specifications layer by layer. The process allows for the creation of complex shapes and objects while producing less waste than traditional manufacturing. Some 3D printers make use of plastics, but the kind of printing Doyle is studying involves alternative cementitious materials (non-Portland cement).

Last fall, Doyle taught a fourth-year architecture studio of students who designed the planters, which were printed in Salt Lake City in collaboration with PIKUS 3D, a commercial landscape element 3D-printing company. The flowers came from Reiman Gardens in Ames, where the planters are now on permanent display.

The seating included in the exhibit, also now at Reiman Gardens, was designed and printed on campus this spring at the ISU Computation and Construction Lab (CCL) with an interdisciplinary studio of fifth-year and graduate students in architecture and landscape architecture.

An augmented reality installation at the IGNITE exhibit connected viewers to a 3D-printed demonstration shed located outside the Communications Building where the CCL is housed. To complete the shed, students in the interdisciplinary studio designed and constructed a brick wall made from two Iowa waste materials: ground decommissioned wind turbines and corn stover ash. This student research is an important step toward developing local, lower-carbon materials for additive construction of homes and disaster preparedness for Iowa communities.

The Iowa State team has attracted additional funding to explore the potential benefits of 3D-printed concrete. For instance, Doyle has begun work tied to a nearly $170,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to lay the groundwork for 3D-printed concrete as a means of building public emergency shelters.

Many communities currently rely on gymnasiums and other large and expensive infrastructure for storm shelters, Doyle said. The vision is for concrete structures near parks or other public spaces as a safe space for people without access to sturdy basements to seek shelter when disasters like tornadoes or derechos strike.

The proving ground

In late April, a sudden buildup of pressure caused a hose pumping concrete mortar into a massive 3D printer to burst, sending mortar flying in every direction. A week later, evidence of the explosion remained on the floors and ceiling of the high-bay warehouse on the Iowa Central Community College East Campus in Fort Dodge.

 

Noah Niemeyer, Iowa Central Community College student, and Pete Evans, Iowa State assistant professor of industrial design, calibrate one of the ErectorBot 3D printers.

Evans, a principal investigator on the 3D AIT Housing Project, has been experimenting with the printer for over a year, turning the Fort Dodge warehouse into a proving ground for the new technology.

The ErectorBot 3D printer can cover an area of roughly 38 by 36 feet and up to 11 feet high. Evans said there are only a handful of construction 3D printers like it in operation in the United States, and, with such emerging technology, setbacks like the burst hose are all but inevitable.

“We’re finding the weak points of the system so we understand what to look out for,” he said. “Every single time we print something, it’s a lesson.”

The suite of technologies Evans and his colleagues are studying includes 3D printing, robotics and automated drone aircraft. Artificial intelligence will be added to the mix as the work continues. These technologies show great promise to create new efficiencies in how buildings are designed and constructed, but the techniques remain immature. Testing them and teaching them to others is a major undertaking.

Bags of concrete mix were stacked high in the corners of the warehouse, and a pallet near the giant printer displayed a nearly seven-foot square on which rested the base of a concrete structure produced by the machine. The base featured sharp right angles and a gap for an entrance in one of the walls. It represented another step in the research group’s efforts to fill in the knowledge gaps about what kind of materials work best in such large printers and what kind of workforce will be necessary to make the technology viable for construction companies.

Part of the project’s mission is to develop curricula to teach students and construction professionals how to integrate 3D printing and associated technologies into the worksite. The initial courses, titled “Additive Construction Management 1 and 2,” work together to prepare students and builders to help employers make use of 3D printing.

All the coursework and materials developed by the Iowa State team — which includes staff and faculty from ISU Extension and Outreach and the School of Education — are open source and available to anyone who wants them, meaning other community colleges can use them to build their own curriculum.

“We want to train students not for next year, not for the next five years, but for the next 20 years, so we need to look at what’s coming, and [additive construction] is definitely coming,” said Dan Oswald, who heads the carpentry program at Iowa Central Community College and teaches the new Additive Construction Management courses there.

Iowa Central Community College instructor Dan Oswald, center, and students Noah Niemeyer and Dairin Oropeza Lopez piloted the first two Additive Construction Management courses developed by the Iowa State team.

Two students at Iowa Central completed the pilot courses this past academic year.

The community college has provided scholarships for students who take the courses, and Oswald hopes to expand them to more students as word spreads about the new curriculum.

The courses address a vital need to develop a workforce in Iowa that’s proficient with the latest technologies capable of expanding available housing in rural Iowa and rebuilding communities after natural disasters, said Robison, the 3D AIT Housing Project manager and principal investigator on the curriculum development part of the IEDA grant.

“There’s great concern for putting housing on the ground quickly and at reasonable prices for people most in need,” she said. “There’s also concern for restoring capacity when we lose housing because of disaster. We’re working on building a workforce that’s prepared to respond to those needs.”

The team also has developed materials for K-12 students, Robison said, introducing youngsters to the fundamentals of 3D printing. The modules illustrate the potential of 3D printing for construction through kid-friendly lessons on dog houses and treehouses, and the lesson plans have been distributed to K-12 educators and 4-H groups.

The process is emerging, layer by layer and step by step. Questions surrounding the technology, material and labor required to make 3D printing viable for housing in Iowa are coming into focus, and ISU researchers are leading the way with a commitment to innovation and collaboration.

“We’re really wrestling with those things, and we haven’t arrived at answers yet,” Evans said. “But we’re getting there.”