TECHNOLOGY
As with any desktop 3D printer, the Vulcan printer pipes layer by layer to build an object – except this printer is more than 13 metres wide, weighs 4.3 tonnes and prints houses. This northern summer, the printer has been finishing the last few of 100 3D-printed houses in Wolf Ranch, a community in Georgetown, Texas, about 50kms from the state capital Austin.
The company behind the build, ICON, began printing the walls of what it says is the world’s largest 3D-printed community back in November 2022. Compared to traditional construction, the company says 3D printing houses is faster, less expensive, requires fewer workers and minimises construction material waste.
“It brings a lot of efficiency to the trade market,” says ICON’s senior project manager Conner Jenkins. “So, where there were maybe five different crews coming in to build a wall system, we now have one crew and one robot.”
After concrete powder, water, sand and other additives are mixed together and pumped into the printer, a nozzle squeezes out the concrete mixture like toothpaste onto a brush, building up layer by layer along a pre-programmed path that creates corduroy-effect walls.
Each single-storey three- to four-bedroom house takes about three weeks to finish printing, with the foundation and metal roofs installed traditionally. Jenkins says the concrete walls are designed to be resistant to water, mould, termites and extreme weather.
Lawrence Nourzad, a 32-year-old business development director, and partner Angela Hontas, a 29-year-old creative strategist, bought a Wolf Ranch home earlier this year. “It feels like a fortress,” says Nourzad, adding he was confident it would be resilient to most tornados.
The walls also provide strong insulation from the Texas heat, the couple says, keeping the interior temperature cool even when the airconditioner wasn’t on full blast.
There was one other thing the 3D-printed walls seemed to protect against, however: a solid wireless internet connection.
“Obviously these are really strong, thick walls. And that’s what provides a lot of value for us as homeowners and keeps this thing really well-insulated in a Texas summer, but signal doesn’t transfer through these walls very well,” Nourzad notes.
To solve the problem, an ICON spokesperson says most Wolf Ranch homeowners use mesh internet routers, which broadcast a signal from multiple units placed throughout a home, rather than a traditional router, which sends a signal from one device.
The 3D-printed homes at Wolf Ranch range in price from around US$450,000 to near $600,000. Developers say just over a quarter of the 100 homes have been sold.
ICON, which 3D-printed its first home in Austin in 2018, hopes to one day take its technology to the Moon. As part of its Artemis Moon exploration program, NASA has contracted ICON to develop a construction system capable of building landing pads, shelters, and other structures on the lunar surface.
TOP 3D-printed homes in Wolf Ranch
ABOVE A 3D printer printing the walls of a home under construction
PHOTOS Reuters/Evan Garcia
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