So you're complaining that these first demonstrations of a novel technology are not comparable to technologies developed over decades or even centuries? There is an expression for this: "the last of the old outperforms the first of the new". Most of us don't seem to have too much trouble applying that concept to programming and hardware related developments, so why is this different?
I am aware that novel techniques for building mud huts are created all the time, and none of those new techniques address the fundamental issue with all of them — this building technique is only suited to single-story buildings on large tracts of land. 3D printing the mud hut doesn’t meaningfully alter that constraint.
The “environmental sustainability” gains you get from using on-site materials would be totally erased by the fact that if you actually built houses like this at scale and expected people to live in them, we would have to massively increase the land area occupied by humans, which is the exact opposite direction we need to go in.
Show me where this technology can knock down the cost of adding infill housing or building vertically in locations where land and construction are expensive (that is, where people actually want to live), and it’ll be worth paying attention to. Otherwise it’s just a dumb, expensive distraction.
I live in a rural area where the population is declining rapidly. There's plenty of land available for cheap, but actually building a house still very expensive. I think a cheaply built, single story structure on a large tract of land could work very well here, and could possibly help to sustain the local population and quality of life.
I agree we should be building denser to meet demand for housing in cities. But not everyone needs to live in a city.
If I literally say "the mud huts aren't the point" and you reply by talking about "novel techniques for building mud huts", then I don't think you're honestly engaging with my argument.
The technique is limited to mud huts for now. It's a demonstration of what it is capable of for now. With more research it could become more useful later on. Seeing that is not rocket science.
