In the image it's putting in 'bricks' the size of cinderblocks; basically clay-based cinderblocks (not sure what the English term for them is). The reason people build with two layers is for thermal insulation. It gives the house mass, and you can leave a gap between the inner and outer bricks in which you can put insulation, so that with 30-35cm in total, you can build a passive house (can be heated with just locally produced energy), even when it's -20 outside.
I don't know if it can lay bricks this close to an existing wall, but if it can't already, that seems to me to be the main issue for adopting this thing in Europe. I wonder how much it would save on the total cost of a house though. Let's say labor for laying bricks on a 'normal' sized (200m2) house in Europe costs 6000 euros (40m2 per facade, times 4, plus twice 40 for the interior walls, times 25 euros per square meter excl vat). How much would this machine cost to rent - 500 euros a day? (a big crane costs that, including operator). You still need an extra man to supervise, stack bricks etc; total cost per day is 1000 euros. Let's say it can actually build it in 3 days, including delivery, cleaning etc. I doubt 3 days is feasible, because the cement can't set that fast. But let's say 3 days. Then you need to count another 1000 (at least) for the CAD engineer to prepare the plans. Seems like minimal gains overall. Probably starts to make sense for large projects only, but not many of those use much brick (but maybe they don't because it's too expensive...)
I don't know if it can lay bricks this close to an existing wall, but if it can't already, that seems to me to be the main issue for adopting this thing in Europe. I wonder how much it would save on the total cost of a house though. Let's say labor for laying bricks on a 'normal' sized (200m2) house in Europe costs 6000 euros (40m2 per facade, times 4, plus twice 40 for the interior walls, times 25 euros per square meter excl vat). How much would this machine cost to rent - 500 euros a day? (a big crane costs that, including operator). You still need an extra man to supervise, stack bricks etc; total cost per day is 1000 euros. Let's say it can actually build it in 3 days, including delivery, cleaning etc. I doubt 3 days is feasible, because the cement can't set that fast. But let's say 3 days. Then you need to count another 1000 (at least) for the CAD engineer to prepare the plans. Seems like minimal gains overall. Probably starts to make sense for large projects only, but not many of those use much brick (but maybe they don't because it's too expensive...)