In a development that has certainly been a long time coming, the World’s Advanced Saving Project (WASP) has officially started experimenting at its open-air construction site, cleverly called a technological village, located in Massa Lombarda in Ravenna, Italy. Within their Technological Village, WASP is building a sustainable 3D printed house using local resources and their own innovative, industrial printers.
Now WASP plans to take these developments even further, inviting volunteers and anyone interested to participate and actively contribute to the building of the first house entirely printed with eco-friendly, locally found, materials. Specifically, the house will be made of a lightweight but durable mixture of terrain and straw kneaded with a mixing machine and a motor hoe. The team have already built 50-centimeter-high wall, extruding more than 400 quintal of material. Their ultimate goal is build a new village based on a self-sufficient society, able to produce basic requirements in various fields including housing, food, employment, healthcare, education and art.
The technological village is name Shamballa, after the mythological city, which symbolizes the city of peace, tranquility and happiness. In the coming future, the team plans to bring more WASP printers to Shamballa, like the DeltaWASP 3MT, which is capable of printing plastic pellets or, by changing the extruder, semi-fluid materials such as geopolymers and clay. Other WASP tools can also mill and cut different types of materials to use for building. Ideally, the technological village will also produce house furniture, which will be the theme of the first open-air workshop starting on Saturday 23rd July. Future workshops – which will always take place on weekends – will concentrate on vertical vegetable gardens (aromatic spirals), ceramic plate printing and kiln construction. For more information and updates on this project, be sure to visit the WASP website.
