Whilst cases of apartments being printed in days had previously been reported, this according to reports was the first time a complete home had been done in one go without any need to be manually pieced together. Excited media ran headlines about the printing of machines which sit on site and churn out entire houses.

Welcome to the world of 3D printing, which involves the creation of a printed material or object using additive processes by laying down successive layers of raw material until the end product is completed. A number of technologies exist to do this in construction – or more commonly, to make the materials which go into modern construction.

The approach pioneered by the Contour Crafting group and adopted by HuaShang Tengda involves 'concrete deposition' in which concrete is mixed through a batching or mixing plant before being pumped onto the machine and printed layer by layer.