L&T's Rs.60 crore worth 3D-printed Luxury Villas in Bengaluru readies for Sale

Construction firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is nearing the completion of India’s first 3D printed villas in Bengaluru. The advisor to the chairman and managing director of L&T informed the six villas are spanning across a land area of 4,000 sq ft each and situated in one of the Prestige Group projects.

The firm did not disclose the exact cost of the villas but according to the sources, the cost of the constructing the villas may go up till Rs.10 crore for each villa.

The method of 3D printing is little different from any other traditional way of design. It uses a robotic arm to create layers using a special concrete mixture, fed into the system to construct the building structure.

M V Satish added, “We began the project in January and we will be close to completing the 3D printing by August. The rest of the project will be completed by October and is likely to be handed over by December-January.”

The project has earned a regulatory certification from the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) and is also being monitored by experts at IIT Madras. The two robotic printers that L&T is using for the project are from Denmark and India.

Previous year, L&T completed their first 3D printed commercial project in Bengaluru for Rs. 23 lakh. The project, spread across 1,100 sq ft area, and it was completely 3D concrete-printed in 45 days.

Satish informed that, Luxury villas can be completed within 1 year with 3D printing technology while with traditional method it will take 2-3 years to be completed. However, in individual project, the cost of printing a building will be the same as that incurred by traditional methods.

The professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT-Madras, Manu Santhanam said, "For a single unit, 3D printing would be more expensive than conventional construction. But when multiple units are being constructed, 3D printing can be a viable option, and independent units can be designed with unique features, which is not possible in conventional construction."

The construction cost can be cut down significantly for larger projects making 3D concrete- printing effective for building large-scale affordable housing projects, Satish added.

However, experts say that the technology is still at a nascent stage as 3D printing regulations are only applicable to G+2 buildings while the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana buildings are majorly mid-rises.

Scalability and high-rises remain a challenge because 3D printing technology is capital-intensive. Sources said most of these machines are leased from abroad and they entail an import duty of about 30-35 %.

For now, L&T said it has received multiple queries for smaller luxury villa projects in Bengaluru and Pune, including from NRIs. Additionally, the company is working with the Union government to deliver multiple 3D concrete-printed projects in the future.