On Printable Hospitals

Recently there was (what seemed like an entirely contrived) “argument” about whether 3D printing will ever go mainstream… I made a comment before the arguing started that… well, I maybe unimaginative, but I don’t really need that much physical stuff. What would I print?

And then as an afterthought said… well maybe hospitals might find it useful… for printing syringes or whatever.

And then I went to hospital.

Yup – hospitals go through a phenomenal amount of physical consumables. Every time they took my temperature, they’d stick this little thing in my ear, then click… a little piece of plastic would go in the bin. Everything from Machines that go Beep to bedpans.

What they really need to though is to be able to print the rooms.

I was in the surgery ward – the toilet/shower setup is a biohazard on legs. It’s crazy for people who have had stomach ops not to have their own ensuite-toilets etc (so long as they’re self cleaning). Every visit to a bathroom should be followed by a sterilisation of the bathroom. And there seems to be a permanent shortage of rooms… so if a way could be found to knock up a few extras, on demand, in a few hours – then dismantle them when they’re no longer needed… then…

So anyway, I was quite interested when a load of links to modular-housing / building etc turned up on the open-manufacturing list.

Some of these are ril pretty… and they seem to be designed with environmental sanity in mind as well. The modular aspect lends itself to extendibility – with plugins, like you might find on… well, a blog say.

I’m not sure how cheap they are – there are acreages of glass etc – in fact some of them seem to be all glass

They are beautiful though… and really, I don’t get… why it is that people (with normal jobs) have to work for most of their lives just to have a somewhere to live. C’mon, we’re clever people. Mere existence should not be a life-time’s work. It seems really badly organised… all this money and human potential flowing uphill, to what? Bankers? Fuck them.

Why can’t housing be really well designed and priced so that you’re not a debt-slave for 20 years? Why can’t it be a basic human right? How can we possibly imagine that we’re going to have happy societies where it’s NOT a basic human right?

But I digress.

Modular housing designs seem to be popping up all over the place of late – everything from converted shipping containers to live-in greenhouses.

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Flatpack has an advantage in that you can maybe just unbolt it if you need to move on/adjust. An emerging alternative to flatpack though seems to be actual large-scale printing, eg:

I’m not sure how close that one is to reality… though there do seem to be people moving in this area.

Yea, so anyway. If I ever go to hospital again, it would be nice to have them say “we’re just making up a room for you”, and an hour later, there’s this shiny new plastic shell… like a disposable/recyclable capsule hotel.