Three architecture students from Spain have developed the Stone Spray Project: a robot that uses CAD drawings to program a robot to 'print' buildings out of sand using a special binding agent. I would imagine that bonded sand would have remarkable compressive strength. Not so sure about tensile, shear and torsional strength. I am really interested to see if/when this moves past the proof of concept phase.
A research project Stone Spray done by Anna Kulik, Inder Shergill and Petr Novikov under the supervision of Marta Male-Alemany, Jordi Portell and Miquel Lloveras in the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in the year 2012. The goal of the project was to research the field of additive manufacturing in architecture and to propose a new eco-friendly, efficient and interesting system to print architecture in 3d. As a result a robot and series of samples were created. Also a book describing the project was published. The group would like to additionally thank Santiago Martin, Guillem Comprodon and Luis Fraguada for their help in this project. Music: Nicolas Jaar - Wouh More information can be found on the website of the project: stonespray.com
