Denmark Opens 3D Printed Student Village With 36 Apartments

Students have started moving into Skovsporet, a 3D printed student village in Holstebro, Denmark. The development contains 36 ground-level apartments spread across six building clusters and covering 1,650 square metres. It was built by 3DCP Group using a COBOD printer on site, with SAGA Space Architects and MS+ handling the design.

The project took 12 months to complete. At peak speed, the crew printed the walls for six apartments in roughly four days with just three people on the printing team. The concrete used FUTURECEM, a lower-carbon cement from Aalborg Portland that emits up to 30% less CO2 during production than ordinary cement. Some elements were printed with a cement-free formulation developed by 3DCP Group using MEVOcem, supported by Innovation Fund Denmark.

Skovsporet is not the largest 3D printed building ever constructed, but it may be the most convincing argument yet for the technology at residential scale. Earlier projects have usually been single demonstration homes. This one is a subsidised housing development that had to meet Denmark's strict building codes for structure, fire safety and energy performance. Passing those requirements inside a real budget and regulatory framework is a bigger milestone than printing a show house.

The site also kept roughly 90% of its existing trees. The printing beds were positioned around the existing vegetation instead of clearing the land. That constraint would have killed a conventional fast-build approach, but 3D concrete printing allowed the layout to adapt to the site without expensive custom formwork.

The apartments are now being let to students at VIA University College. For the 3D construction industry, Skovsporet is proof of concept: the technology can move from prototype to occupied homes at scale.