Home, Sweet Home
Photo/Eric Mankin
Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Behrokh Khoshnevis of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Information Sciences Institute has been developing his automated house-building process, called “Contour Crafting,” for more than a year.
Khoshnevis believes his system will be able to construct a full-size, 2,000- square-foot house with utilities embedded in 24 hours. He now has a working machine that can build full-scale walls and is hoping to actually construct his first house in early 2005.
Contour Crafting uses crane- or gantry-mounted nozzles, from which building material - concrete, in the prototype now operating in his laboratory - comes out at a constant rate.
Moveable trowels surrounding the nozzle mold the concrete into the desired shape, as the nozzle moves over the work.
Khoshnevis demonstrated the idea to Degussa executives at a meeting at the firm’s Düsseldorf headquarters.
The demonstration was deemed “impressive” by Gerhard Albrecht, head of divisional research and technology transfer for Admixture, a Degussa specialty materials subsidiary.
“It is our belief that your [Contour Crafting] concept will be a quantum leap in modern construction industry,” wrote Albrecht, in a subsequent letter. “Therefore, we are ready to do research in our own Degussa R&D departments to develop and provide construction materials that are serviceable and fitted for the special building conditions of the CC technology.
“Degussa not only has at its disposal a wide range of construction chemicals which will be tested with regard to their qualification and applicability for special CC cement formulations, but is also ready to develop special new construction chemicals in our own R&D labs fitted for the CC process," Albrecht continued.
Khoshnevis is now perfecting a system to mix such materials continuously in industrial quantities right at the Contour Crafting nozzle, “the way a spider makes silk to build a web.”
“No company in the world is better able to bridge the gap between engineering idea and commercial practice than Degussa,” Khoshnevis said. “With their help, I believe I will be able to show the world an instant house early next year.”
Contact Gia Scafidi at (213) 740-9335 or scafidi@usc.edu.
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USC in the News
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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