02-05-2014 15:00

Ten grey building were built in Shanghai. They may look like normal houses from a distance, but they are quite special. They are China’s first buildings made with 3D printing technology.

The houses were built without using bricks or tiles. The walls are made of a special mixture of materials like sand or concrete. This material is printed by 3D printers which were developed in East China. The printers lay one layer of the material on top of another.

The layers are well connected and they will not deform. The layers are only three centimetres thick, but they are five times harder than normal materials.

Difficult words: tile (flat square piece which is used in buildings), concrete (material which is used for building), layer (amount of material that covers a surface of something), deform (to change shape).

You can read the original story and watch the video in the Level 3 section.