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First of all, I really genuinely hope that you succeed. You're attacking a Hard Problem, and one that very much needs to be solved. That said: I'm fairly skeptical that your approach will work. Maybe you've seen an angle that I've haven't, so I ask this in a hopeful and constructive spirit: what differentiates you from other initiatives that I've seen fail to transform the world? Two points of comparison. First, the Hexayurt[1]. The inventor of the Hexayurt system is a good friend of mine. He created it to provide higher-quality shelter for the bottom billion, particularly in refugee camps. It is actually cheaper than a tent, not much harder to set up, and provides a far more durable and climate-controlled experience. Unfortunately, although it's made a fair impact at Burning Man, it has failed to take root in the context it was designed for. The gatekeepers at refugee camps don't want to provide housing which conveys a sense of permanence; therefore the tents have stayed even hough they're worse in every possible metric. Second, the CalEarth Foundation's "superAdobe" technique[2]. I also have personal experience with this, having built a dome with its founder Nader Khalili over 20 years ago. This system allows the construction of spectacularly beautiful high-quality homes using nothing more than dirt, barbed wire, sandbags, plaster, and quite a lot of low-skill labour. Although there have been pilots around the world, it has notably failed to make any large-scale changes in housing the poor. (The reasons for its lack of broad adoption are complex, and I'm not actually sure I have a good diagnosis. But it's a good point of comparison nonetheless). Compared to Hexayurts, you're undoubtedly higher-quality -- but also two orders of magnitude slower and more expensive. Compared to CalEarth, you need much less manual labour -- but that's the one resource that the developing world is rich in. After accounting for a larger workforce (paid at local wages), you're easily an order of magnitude more expensive, as well as less customisable and maintainable by the local populace. I don't see any compelling advantages offhand. So what's your edge? I've been interested in 3D printed buildings since making that a major focus of my architecture degree in the 1990s, but I've always seen it as becoming competitive in places where the cost or availability of human labour was a limiting factor for construction. In the developing world, that just isn't the case. So how is this a solution to the developing world's problem? 1: http://hexayurt.com/ 2: http://www.calearth.org/ |