Starbucks Opens Its First 3D-Printed Store

What can you build with a 3D printer? Starbucks just printed itself a new store — a drive-through location in the southern tip of Texas.

Fast Company says it's a store that 'looks more like the future of construction than your average café.'

Built with layers of concrete piped out by a giant robotic printer, the 1,400-square-foot structure is part of the company's ongoing effort to modernize operations and trim costs... Peri-3D, a German company, used a giant 3D printer to pump out layers of concrete mixture to create the structure. According to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the cost for building the small scale coffee shop was about $1.2 million...

Of course, the new method is a first for the brand. And builders say, the more they use the technology, the more efficient they are at it. In Georgetown, Texas, an entire community of 100 homes was recently built using 3D-printing. The company who built the community, Lennar, says they're seeing costs drop with each build. Stuart Miller, chairman and co-CEO of Lennar, told CNBC earlier this year that the construction company says their costs and cycle time go down 'by half' by adopting 3D-printing. 'This is significant improvement in evolving a housing market that has the ability to change over time and being more adaptable and more functional in providing affordable and attainable housing for a broader swath of the market,' said Miller...

3D-printing is also much faster, meaning that projects can be completed in a fraction of the time, potentially drastically cutting labor costs. According to the World Economic Forum, 3D-printing can cost just 30% of what building structures the old-fashioned way costs.

The article offers more examples of 3D-printed buildings. ('in Japan, a 3D-printed train station was just erected. And Peri-3D, itself, has completed at least 15 construction projects, including residential buildings in Europe and Germany.')
3D-printing has even been incorporated into some restaurants for customizing food, the article notes, 'but building restaurants with the technology is a brand-new development.'

Although not everyone seems convinced. Instagram comments on a picture of Starbucks' new 3D-printed drive-through characterized its aesthetic as 'dirty', 'fugly', 'violently hideous', and 'like hot garbage'.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.