The technology is here now. This house is a boring square cracker box, which you would expect from Habitat for Humanity and a proof of concept. However, the freedom of 3-D printing allows you to make almost any shape that you can imagine that is physically possible.
Modern houses are shaped the way they are because of ease of construction and cost effectiveness, mostly.
How can we use the new freedom offered by the technology to make entirely new structures that take advantage of the freedom of form and reduced waste in construction?
I’m thinking of things like amazing windows and passive climate control structures inspired by how termites manage the climate in their mounds. Does anyone have any interesting forms or shapes they’d make?
It’s not all about making blobby organic shapes that are hard to furnish though. You can make square interiors for rooms and in addition have voids strategically placed in the concrete to create chimneys and reduce solar gain, for instance, or your example of incorporating insulation.
This is the kind of discussion I’d like to have though. Sure, one of the reasons dome homes don’t catch on is the awkwardness of using circular spaces. But that’s no reason to think the exterior, wall-interiors and ceilings have to be orthogonal.
You can have a squared off room with an epic organic vaulted ceiling designed to create natural ventilation, for instance. Such things are currently expensive because they are custom construction, but what becomes economical when you don’t have to make concrete forms?
Some things are square (like the interior walls) because it’s just more usable, as you mention. Many other aspects of stick-built structures are square just to facilitate cost-effective construction, usually labor and material saving, not because it’s the best way when considering for the whole lifespan of the building.