K. A. TKACHENKO

Candidate of Economic Sciences

Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences

Keywords: urban population growth, affordable housing, 3D printing, modular house, recycled raw materials, automated process

"To complete the picture, I'll tell you: what used to build houses? - Made of bricks, wood, concrete, blocks... - Which is easier to build from a brick-a cube or a ball? "Sure, the cube. - And from slabs, from blocks? - Also a cube. But from concrete you can do anything you want. - of course. But it is very expensive. But when we learned how to raise children at home..."

Kir Bulychev. A hundred years ahead. 1978.

As of 2015, in Africa, with 470 million urban inhabitants, 60% of the population still lives in rural areas - about 700 million people.¹

However, the 2014 UN report on Global urbanization predicts a 16% increase in the Black continent's urban population by 2050, making it the region with the highest urbanisation ^dynamics in the world2.

The report says that Africa will soon face a host of challenges in providing its fast-growing urban population with modern infrastructure, healthcare and housing. "Urban governance has become one of the most important issues of the twenty - first century," says John Wilmot, Head of Population Affairs at the United Nations.

The rapid growth of the Black continent's urban population means an increase in demand for affordable urban housing. But today, the purchase of an apartment in a multi-storey panel house for the vast majority of Africans is an unaffordable luxury. The innovative 3D printing technology*, which is increasingly being used in various industries, is able to provide housing for a much larger number of urban residents. It guarantees a truly revolutionary speed of construction, high reliability of buildings, the availability of all the necessary amenities, and most importantly-a lower construction cost than panel and, especially, brick-monolithic houses.

HOW TO" GROW " A HOUSE

The method of building, or rather," growing " a house, which is discussed in the article, of course, differs from the method described in 1978 by the famous writer and orientalist Cyrus Bulychev. But, in fact, they are similar: both technologies open up enormous prospects for creating economy-class real estate.

Such technologies are particularly important for the housing sector in countries with a significant segment of the population living below the poverty line. In Africa , this is at least the entire sub-Saharan region. The government of almost every country on the Black Continent is interested in providing its population with affordable housing, which will be something more reliable and comfortable than huts with thatched roofs and barracks assembled from scrap metal.

And such housing - modern multi-storey complexes or, if we are talking about rural areas, cottages, at first glance, no different from traditional brick-and-concrete buildings-exists, and not in the form of a concept: the technology has already "gone to the masses".

In 2015, the Chinese construction company Zhuo Da, which became one of the pioneers in the construction of "printed on a printer"homes,

* 3D printing ( three-dimensional printing) is the additive process of manufacturing a solid three-dimensional object from a pre-prepared digital layout. An object is created by sequentially creating and superimposing layers of raw material on top of each other (author's note).

I gave a very impressive presentation in Xi'an: in front of the invited audience, the builders, using pre-printed modules on a 3D printer, assembled a two-story villa ³ in 3 hours. After the time allotted for assembly, the audience was invited to the house, where they were able to personally verify the complete readiness of the object for living: all amenities, including a kitchen set and a bathroom, were installed and fully ready for use. The modular house shown to the public is fireproof and, according to the developer, is resistant to 9-point earthquakes.

The seriousness of Zhuo Da's intentions to actively apply the new technology is evidenced by the fact that the company has already filed applications for 22 industrial patents and refuses to disclose the details of the process: obviously, in order to have time to take advantage of its monopoly position, many similar competing firms have not yet appeared. However, some technical information about the equipment used is available.

Another pioneer of large-scale 3D printing, the Chinese company Wing Sun, used a 32x10x6.4 meter printer that can produce an entire room at once to implement its five-story apartment building project. All the operator had to do was set a program, press the "Start" button, and control the process while sitting in a chair with a cup of coffee. A mixture of cement and industrial waste, including recycled raw materials, was used as ink4.

The full cycle of turnkey work-from drawing, printing parts and modules to the end of assembly-is 10 days, of which directly assembling at home takes an average of 3 hours. For comparison purposes: the construction of a similar building using traditional brick-and-block technologies takes from 4 to 6 months. The average cost of building, or rather printing and assembling, one square meter of innovative housing ranges from $400, which is about $100 less than a traditional house made of concrete panels.

As 3d printing becomes more widespread in the construction industry, this difference in cost will become even more pronounced. In the near future, the "printing" of houses will undoubtedly replace traditional reinforced concrete blocks and bricks. Its other advantages for developers are the high speed of manufacturing materials and assembling the project, lower labor costs and an order of magnitude lower injuries in production (the process is largely automated and only controlled by operators).

BUT THERE ARE ALSO PROBLEMS WITH KNOW-HOW

The complexity of putting 3d printing on industrial rails is associated with the need to re - equip production-to switch to high-precision computerized equipment, its maintenance by qualified personnel. As of the beginning of 2016, the price of the basic model of a 3D printer for home use is from $1000 to $2500, while industrial versions are significantly more expensive.

However, the costs incurred by investors are offset by a number of advantages, and in the short term. In addition to the above-mentioned short production times for building components and its high-speed assembly, which ensures very fast commissioning of the building and reduces the risks of shareholders, an important advantage is the capabilities of the equipment itself. Even the simplest 3D printer can make some spare parts for itself to replace the worn ones. This reduces equipment downtime in case of failure.: no need to order a new part from the factory and wait for it to be delivered ⁵.

The author of the article is confident that in 30 years in countries with a developed industry and dynamic private capital-mainly in rapidly developing Asia - "printing" houses will become the dominant technology for building economy-class real estate.

As for Africa,the most likely scenario is a very uneven spread of new technology across the continent. This will depend on the activity of internal and external investors, as well as the desire of the government and large businesses of each country to effectively interact in urban planning and training personnel in technical and managerial specialties.

¹ Global Population Statistics - http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_urban.aspx

² World Urbanization Prospects, the 2014 revision -http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2014-Report.pdf

³ Chinese company 'builds' 3D-printed villa in less than 3 hours - http://inhabitat.com/chinese-company-builds-3d-printed-villa-in-less-than-3-hours/

⁴ China 3D prints mansion and apartment block -http://www.domain.com.au/news/china-3d-prints-rnansi-on-and-apartment-block-20150122 - 12vkri/

⁵ The Dollo 3D Printer can 3D print a replica of itself in just 18 hours - http://3dprint.com/63229/dollo-3d-printer-prints-itself

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