3d Printing a Building with 756 Windows
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The story discusses a 3D printed building with 756 windows, sparking discussion on the construction technique and its potential limitations, such as glass replacement.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Moderate engagementFirst comment
4d
Peak period
8
Day 5
Avg / period
8
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Aug 23, 2025 at 6:31 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Aug 27, 2025 at 6:52 PM EDT
4d after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
8 comments in Day 5
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Aug 28, 2025 at 12:49 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
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The Empire State Building is 102 floors (not including the 200 foot pinacle on top) and was completed in about 78 weeks (including interior finishing), so I'm not sure the math works out here.
The CBR building is 9 floors and took about twice as long as the Empire State Building to build.
I'm partial to LiftBuild's method of building the central tower first, and then constructing each floor at ground level and hoisting it up the tower and into place. The bulk of construction is done on the ground, faster building with less rigging and safety requirements. I think they averaged 10 days per floor on their last build.
Then what happens if any of the glass needs to be replaced due to breakage? Sounds like a short-sighted design choice.
The sentence you quoted continues:
> protecting the floors from the elements and allowing work to progress on the interior as floors above were still under construction.
so it seems the main benefit was that the construction could be pipelined better as the already in place glass helped shelter the interior.
That said, very good job and writeup.
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