3D Printing has been used to develop a new kind of building material in the form of interlocking bricks that are lightweight and need no mortar.

Polybrick (as these new kinds of bricks are known) have been developed by Sabin Design Lab along with Corral University and Jenny Sabin Studio and it the first mortarless 3D printed wall assembly.

Featuring a dovetail joint similar to those used in woodworking the PolyBrick also has tapered sides in order to maximise structural strength.

“PolyBrick is the first mortarless, 3-D printed wall assembly,” Jenny Sabin said. “It will allow for the production of ceramic wall assemblies that are robust and high strength due to the novel implementation of highly complex and organic generative design strategies that are also simply and economically produced. … 3-D printing allows us to build and design like nature does, where every part is different, but there is a coherence to the overall form at a global scale.”

“I started working with 3-D printing in 2009 when we were able to purchase our first ZCorp 510 powder-based printer … the largest powder-based printer on the market at the time,” Sabin said. “I was interested in using the printer to rapid manufacture non-standard parts for larger architectural assemblies instead of representational models. To our knowledge, we were the first to do this.”

It’s envisaged that whole buildings will be constructed of a single building material and due to the 3D printing process, and the porous nature of the bricks there is very little waste and a relatively low amount of raw material required when compared to solid bricks.

 

This is certainly something the brick manufacturing giants should take notice of, especially in light of their ability to control the prices of bricks based on their manufaturing output.