The stagnating productivity and the diminishing skilled workforce are major limiting factors for healthy development in the construction industry. While the job profile of the construction worker has been steadily losing its appeal, increasing the degree of automation and digitalization in construction appears to be the only feasible option to master the current and future challenges to the building industry. For new technologies such as 3D concrete printing their economic competitiveness in comparison with traditional ways of concrete construction is one of the key issues. Economic feasibility depends on the material costs and pace of the construction process in the first place, both parameters being strongly influenced by the cross-sectional dimensions of the deposited layers and the printing speed. Subsequently, specific configurations of printheads are needed to meet these requirements. This article focusses on illuminating some topics arising when developing a printhead for large-scale, extrusion-based additive manufacturing using coarse aggregate concrete.