Dubai opens world’s first functioning 3D-printed office

A view of the world’s first functional 3D printed offices are seen in Dubai. (Reuters)

DUBAI: Dubai has opened what it said was the world’s first functioning 3D-printed office building, part of a drive by the Gulf’s main tourism and business hub to develop technology that cuts costs and saves time.
The printers — used industrially and also on a smaller scale to make digitally designed, three-dimensional objects from plastic — have not been used much for building.
This one used a special mixture of cement, a Dubai government statement said, and reliability tests were done in Britain and China.
The one-story prototype building, with floorspace of about 250 square meters (2,700 square feet), used a 20-foot (6-meter) by 120-foot by 40-foot printer, the government said.
“This is the first 3D-printed building in the world, and it’s not just a building, it has fully functional offices and staff,” the UAE Cabinet Affairs Minister Mohamed Al-Gergawi, said.
“We believe this is just the beginning. The world will change,” he said.
The arc-shaped office, built in 17 days and costing about $140,000, will be the temporary headquarters of Dubai Future Foundation — the company behind the project — is in the center of the city, near the Dubai International Financial Center.
Al-Gergawi said studies estimated the technique could cut building time by 50-70 percent and labor costs by 50-80 percent.
Dubai’s strategy was to have 25 percent of the buildings in the emirate printed by 2030, he said.