3D-Printed Buildings Are Coming

House in Amsterdam to be completed by end of the year

A couple of months ago, Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars announced that he was building a curvy, loopy and for some reason, largely see-through building, to be made with the help of Enrico Dini's D-Shape 3D printer. The project would cost up to 5 million euros ($6.4 million) and be completed in 2014.

Another group quickly piped up, declaring that a similar project they were working on would be done even faster and cheaper. London-based Softkill Design intends to fabricate a web-like building and what's more, it says it will need just three weeks to print the structure—and only a single day to assemble it, which it plans to do at some point later this year.