The robotic arm poured layer upon layer of concrete to manufacture the site.
The site is only a drive-thru – and opens on Friday.
This is has made Starbucks one of the first big retailers to use 3D printing for commercial construction. It is unknown if the company plans to reuse this technology again.
“It’s early days yet,” said James Rose, director of the Institute for Smart Structures at the University of Tennessee. “I’m happy to see people doing all of these different things with it, and I think at some point we’ll figure out what its best use is. But right now I think you’re going to see lots of experimentation, and I think that’s a good thing.”
The technology has previously been used by builders constructing residential homes to tackle the housing crisis.
“You are starting to see the technology is getting faster, smaller,” Mr McCoy said. “It’s getting easier to use.”
