3D printing houses out of cow dung could offer a cheap and sustainable solution to conventional building methods and materials. First, because the poo captures nitrogen. Second, because 3D printing uses less material, less labour costs and is a fast production method. And third, because cow poo is so abundant: a rough calculation made by 3 Dung Design shows that they would be able to build approximately 1.5 million houses out of manure every year in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has an enormous agricultural industry. Although it is a small country, it is the second-largest agriculture exporter in the world. All the cattle do not only produce milk, eggs and meat, but also an overwhelming amount of poo. Every year, the Netherlands produce 53.66 billion kg of manure, and eighteen billion kg of that is excess. The government has tried to manage the situation, but often caused more harm than good. Moreover, out of all the dung that is produced by cattle, 80% comes from cows. Therefore, 3 Dung Design decided to focus our project on the repurposing of cow dung.

The Getting Our Shit Togetherspeculative project on how to tackle the nitrogen overload and housing shortage in the Netherlands.