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ICON, the Texas-based robotics and advanced materials company with lunar ambitions, has announced a new line of (earthbound) 3D printed houses designed in collaboration with a number of top architects.
Lake | Flato Architects, based in San Antonio and Austin, is the first company to be selected for the so-called Exploration Series, which, according to ICON, will develop “new design and architectural languages” with collaborating architects, “based on the possibilities offered by 3D- Print on a construction scale. ”Future partnerships for the series are not yet known.
In East Austin, work is already underway on the first 3D printed residence called House Zero. It’s the same neighborhood that ICON is partnering with real developers 3Strands and Logan Architecture, a new development populated by “mainstream” 3D-printed single-family homes. (Prior to the development of East Austin, ICON’s previous habitable creations, including a low-cost housing project in Mexico City and a similar project in Austin dedicated to housing ex-homeless residents, were rather small and experimental in nature.)
A bustling start-up in the Lone Star State that boasts Bjarke Ingels Group as one of its A-Round investors, ICON has certainly attracted attention as it entered the mainstream Austin housing market. The company was founded in 2017 and its first prototype was completed in early 2018. The company was recently profiled by TODAY and several other branches. His pitch is attractive: durable, efficient and increasingly non-outrée residential buildings that can be built in half the time at half the cost of traditional rod construction.
A look at ICON’s new generation Vulcan printing system (Courtesy ICON)
A 2,000-square-foot proposition that blends “mid-century modernist ranch house aesthetics with the organic possibilities of additive building,” according to a press release from ICON, Lake | Flatos House Zero will have three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and especially a one-bedroom – Additional residential unit (presumably also 3D-printed) with a size of 350 square meters.
According to ICON, House Zero is unique in that it is the first house of its kind specifically designed for 3D printing (although the organizers of Project Milestone in Eindhoven, Netherlands may disagree).
“House Zero will be the most incredible 3D-printed house in the world because it has been specially optimized and designed for 3D printing,” said ICON Co-Founder and CEO Jason Ballard in a statement. “This is the moment when people all over the world see more of the architectural freedom and benefits of a 3D-printed house and believe that they too want to live in a 3D-printed house.”
The Vulcan printer extrudes LavaCrete, a proprietary concrete mix developed by ICON. (Courtesy symbol)
“House Zero enabled Lake | Flato to develop our ethos of human and nature centered design in a completely new way,” adds Ashley Heeren, a Lake | Flato employee. “It was exciting for our team to design this home of the future and explore new ways to create a high-performing shelter that celebrates craftsmanship, strives for efficiency, and eliminates steps in the construction process.”
In addition to debuting House Zero and the Exploration Series, ICON also announced the launch of a next-generation construction system based on its patented Vulcan 3D printing technology. Weighing 9,500 pounds, the souped-up robotic system enables the company to print structures up to 3,000 square feet at twice the speed of previous Vulcan printers. The home-producing robot is operated with an automated control system via a smartphone app developed by ICON.
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