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Written by Oscar Holland, CNN
A new real estate development in Austin, Texas is set to become the world’s largest community of 3D printed homes.
The groundbreaking should take place next year. The project will include 100 single story homes “printed” on site using advanced robotic construction and a concrete-based building material.
Digital renderings of the neighborhood, which were unveiled last week, show rows of plots whose roofs are covered with solar panels. Each house will take about a week to build, according to the companies behind the development.
The project is a collaboration between housing company Lennar and ICON, a Texas-based construction company that specializes in 3D printed structures. The houses were designed by the Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group.
Although ICON did not want to disclose the cost of the project, the company said its technology was significantly faster and cheaper than traditional construction methods – also because it required less manual labor. The construction process will include five of the company’s 46 foot wide robotic “Vulcan” printers that output a concrete mix called Lavacrete according to a preprogrammed home design.
The companies behind the project said houses can be made significantly cheaper and faster with 3D printing. Credit: SYMBOL / Lennar
The company said it could make houses up to 3,000 square feet and previously printed the walls of a house 400 to 500 square feet in just 24 hours (spread over “several days”). Roofs, windows, doors and cladding are later added by Lennar.
In a press release, ICON Co-Founder and CEO Jason Ballard described the Austin neighborhood as “a turning point in the history of community development.”
“Building-scale 3D printing not only delivers higher quality homes faster and more cheaply, but printer fleets can change the way entire communities are built for the better,” he is quoted as saying. “The United States has a shortfall of approximately 5 million new homes, so there is an urgent need to increase supply quickly without compromising on quality, beauty, or sustainability, and that is the strength of our technology.”
In a statement, Martin Voelkle, partner of Bjarke Ingels Group, described the 3D printed buildings – and their photovoltaic roofs – as “significant steps towards reducing waste in the construction process and increasing the resilience and sustainability of our houses”. and energy self-sufficient. “
A digital rendering shows houses under construction. Credit: SYMBOL / Lennar
Proponents of 3D printed construction believe it can significantly reduce labor costs and construction time. Research has also shown that the method can reduce waste and carbon dioxide emissions. The ability of 3D printers to build buildings without formwork (the concrete forms cement is normally poured into) can significantly reduce the overall consumption of the material, which is responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions annually, noted for example that building a bathroom unit with 3D printing produced almost 86% less carbon dioxide than traditional construction methods – and was over 25% cheaper. Critics now point out that 3D concrete printing is still based on a non-renewable material and that the safety and stability of structures are not specifically considered in the existing building regulations.
“No science fiction”
While the newly announced Austin project is ICON’s largest to date, the company has been using 3D printing to build social or subsidized housing in Mexico and Texas since 2018. The company also recently announced it is working with NASA to use lunar dust building materials to build a lunar base. Earlier this year, ICON announced plans for a separate four-home development in East Austin. In 2019, the company also announced it was building a community of 50 homes for low-income families in Tabasco, Mexico.
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ICON has not yet announced pricing for the homes in its new Austin development. Earlier this year, the first printed house to hit the US market – a single-story, 1,400-square-foot space in Riverhead, New York – listed for $ 299,000. Another 3D printing company, the Palari Group, recently unveiled plans to build 15 3D-printed properties near Palm Springs, California, with three-bedroom homes priced starting at $ 595,000, a much higher-quality product at one Bringing speed and price to the housing market “that is” typically not available “to low-income families. His company believes its technology can also be used to combat homelessness and can be used in disaster relief.
“3D printing is not science fiction,” Ballard said at the time. “We have crossed the threshold from science fiction to reality. We bet that in the future this will be mankind’s greatest hope for a housing solution that corresponds to our highest values and ideals.”
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