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Almost exactly a year ago, PERI 3D Construction announced it would be 3D printing a multi-family apartment building in Bezannes, France as part of a social housing initiative. The housing project, dubbed ViliaSprint² and developed by Plurial Novilia, is now ready, marking the completion of Europe’s largest 3D printed apartment building.
ViliaSprint² spans 800 square meters of habitable space and includes 12 units across three floors. The building’s shell was constructed using the COBOD BOD2 construction 3D printer and a printable concrete from Holcim. Notably, the apartment block was 3D printed alongside a near-identical building that was made using conventional construction methods. This enabled Plurial Novilia to evaluate the benefits of 3D printing through a direct comparison.
As the company found, the 3D printed building was completed three months faster than the conventional building and required half the labor (three site operators vs six). Material waste was also halved (from 10% to 5%), while overall material usage was reduced by 10% thanks to the 3D printed building’s curved design.
The 3D printed apartment building next to the coventionally manufactured building
The printing of ViliaSprint² reportedly took 34 days (faster than the 50 days originally projected by PERI and its partners). According to Henrik Lund-Nielsen, Founder and General Manager of COBOD International, this printing time could be accelerated to just 14 days in future projects by using a bigger layer height (2.5 times at 5 cm).
“It is great to see PERI 3D Construction and our customers in general continuously taking on larger and larger projects with our technology producing remarkable results,” he added. “ViliaSprint² is a great example of how 3D construction printing can cut construction time, material consumption and waste and limit the amount of labor used, also for quite large buildings.”
Using the gantry-based BOD2 3D printer, PERI was able to print the shell of the building, including load-bearing walls, directly on site. The company also employed an optimized sequencing of prefabricated floor slabs, which reduced the repositioning requirements for the large-scale 3D printer and enabled a more efficient construction process. As mentioned, the construction material used was a printable concrete formula based on Holcim’s TectorPrint technology and reinforced with synthetic macro fibers. The material is also part of the company’s CO₂-reduced ECOPact range.
“We are proud to have supported this project as technology partner and print executor,” said Dr. Fabian Meyer-Brötz, Managing Director of PERI 3D Construction. “The result shows vividly what is already possible in 3D building printing today, faster construction, fewer workers, and fully load-bearing structures. This is an important milestone and motivation to push this technology further.”
Other features integrated into the finished 3D printed social housing include perlite insulation—beneficial for its efficient insulation and fire resistance—timber balconies, photovoltaic panels, and a hybrid gas/heat pump system, which contribute to the building’s energy efficiency. According to the partners, the apartment building achieves about 60% energy self-sufficiency, making it in line with France’s RE2020 2025 targets.
Following on the success of the ViliaSprint² project, Plurial Novilia and its partners plan to ramp up 3D printing efforts with the construction of 40 apartments. This project will deploy two 3D printers and is expected to bring print times down by a factor of four. In this project, the partners also believe costs will be reduced further, bringing them more in line with those of conventional construction.
The ability to construct houses on-site faster and with less labor is increasingly being explored for the purpose of building social housing. While ViliaSprint² is the largest printed social housing building in Europe to date, there have also been other similar projects, including a publicly funded social housing development in Lünen, Germany; 3D printed social housing in Dubbo, Australia; and three units in Ireland.