3D Printed Houses. The Affordable Home of Tomorrow.

3D Printed Homes?

On March 16, 2018 the Austin, TX Construction company ICON completed the first 3D printed home in the United States. The home has been deemed livable and passed all Austin city code compliances. ICON has unveiled the equipment and technology to build a 3D printed house in less than 24 hours for the average price of $4,000.00. The companies plan is to take the equipment to El Salvador to build a massive village full of affordable homes to help improve the countries living conditions. Icon has stated that in later development stages, the equipment will be able to complete a home in just under 12 hours. Based on everything we are seeing, this appears to be a game changer in affordable housing.

How it Works

Along with ICON, there are several other companies on the verge of mass printing homes. A large company in The Netherlands based in Eindhoven, is set to have the world’s first habitable community made from 3D printed Homes. The process is rather simple. A 3D printer is set up in the center of what will be the home and is filled concrete and other certified building materials. The foundation and walls of the home can then be made to fit any type of structure that is designed by the architect and programmed into the printers. Along with providing affordable homes, this process will also offset the Dutch cities extreme shortage of brick masons. The printed homes have apparently been exposed to rigorous testings for quite some time before getting the government approval to move forward for mass production.

Summary

It appears that these companies are making great headway with getting these homes ready for mass production. If so, in twenty or so years, homeless epidemics abroad and at home could be a thing of the past. It’ll be interesting to see how these homes hold up over time and see just how cheap we can build them. These things right here are why we must always push the technological envelope and ask “Why” instead of “Why Not”. At one time, being able to build cheap 3D printed homes was the fevered dream of a mad man. Now here we are standing on its doorstep, no pun intended.