3D-printing technology is revolutionizing the future of homebuilding

Daniella and Bryan Glaesener's three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch-style home house is much like any home you’d come across in Georgetown, Texas. It’s a single story with a modern door, front yard, two-car garage and solar panels perched on top of the pitched metal roof. There is one very distinct difference, however: It was built by a robot.

Well, mostly.

The curved, ribbed walls of their home were made using a 5-ton, three-dimensional printer that printed generated the entire wall system of their home in 12 days. And their home is not the only one:. All 100 homes in their Wolf Ranch subdivision, just north of Austin, were built using this method.

The novel approach to homebuilding was thought up by Jason Ballard, CEO of ICON, an Austin-based construction technology company that develops robotic and artificial-intelligence systems. The building process his company pioneered is quite mesmerizing to watch. A material called Lavacrete — a proprietary, mostly cement mixture created by ICON — comes out of the machine like soft-serve ice cream and is poured row on top of row in inch-thick layers.

Built to withstand harsh conditions, it is mixed on site in a the “Magma” portable mixing unit based on construction needs and climate conditions. The company’s software prepares the architecture for printing homes and then controls the massive Vulcan printer on-site. The printers are used to construct walls. Then, traditional methods are used for foundations, floors, roofs and finishes.

A promising start

Since launching in 2017, ICON has built more than 170 3-D-printed homes in four states and two countries. To date, more than 100 people live in ICON homes.

Because 3-D-printed homes are still such a rarity, it’s something that fascinates people. Case in point: In 2021, a survey conducted by realtor.com showed that 66 percent of consumers would be open to the idea of living in a 3D-printed home. For millennials, 75 percent said they would.

Part of the popularity is thanks to social media. The Glaeseners were first drawn to 3D-printed homes on TikTok. Now that they have their home, Daniella Glaesener's Tik Tok tours are racking up millions of views on her @life_0f_dani account.

Same goes for Aiman Hussein Alquist, who goes by @layerlord. As the director of printing technology at Alquist 3D his videos, showing the process of 3D -homes being built, get views in the tens of millions of views.

Attention- grabbing homes

“Our friends and family asked all of the same questions we asked when we were first interested in this type of home,” Daniella Glaesener says. “They all had questions about the printing process, how to mount things onto the wall, cleaning the walls, efficiency, and everything in between.”

For the Glaeseners, the deciding factors were price and efficiency: Homes in Wolf Ranch start around $300,000 (in ICON’s newest neighborhood, Wimberley Springs, homes start in the $800,000 range). And the concrete walls make the house more energy efficient.

“ICON’s wall system combines the benefits of a concrete mass wall with a thermally broken building envelope, to keep occupants cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter while using less energy,” says Graeme Waitzkin, ICON’s COO.

An added benefit is protection from natural disasters. ICON put the building materials through rigorous testing to ensure resiliency. Add to that the cost savings, and it appears that this industry has a bright future. By 2027, the 3D-printing market is predicted to be worth $55.8 billion, according to Smithers, a technology consulting firm.

What’s next for ICON? “Our goal is to see tens of thousands of 3D-printed homes built using ICON’s technology, including with our (the) upcoming release of our Phoenix multi-story printer,” Waitzkin says.

The biggest challenge for the industry is that the demand is high, but availability remains is quite limited right now.

Breaking new ground in homebuilding

Coming soon to the Lone Star State is a first-of-its-kind communal retreat with 3-D-printed hotel rooms and residential homes. In a dusty, otherworldly landscape on the edge of Marfa, El Cosmico, is moving its existing location and expanding to include 43 new 3D-printed hotels rooms and 18 residential homes.

“I was fascinated by the work the ICON folks were doing to revolutionize the building practice — something that is long overdue — and was really drawn to how 3D printing allows freedom in the types of built environments we can create,” says Liz Lambert, owner of El Cosmico. “Curved walls, parabolas and other forms that are found in nature are suddenly possible in building.”

The hotel will have campsites available for $60 a day and accommodations starting at $159 a night. Guests can also choose from restored vintage trailers, yurts and teepees.

ICON also started construction on 100 3D-printed homes at Community First! Village, a master-planned neighborhood in Austin operated by the nonprofit run by Mobile Loaves & Fishes that provides permanent homes for people coming out of chronic houselessness. “This extends the work that ICON has completed over the past four years at Community First! Village to serve the underhoused community,” Waitzkin says.

Cosmic construction

Beyond homes, ICON’s Vulcan printers have also printed military barracks and a full-size simulation of a Martian habitat for NASA. It turns out, 3D printing will likely be a good solution to building infrastructure beyond planet Earth one day. ICON is working with NASA to develop space-based construction systems that could serve as build habitats on the moon and Mars.

“We expect to have ICON hardware and printed infrastructure on the lunar surface within this decade,” Waitzkin says.