3D Printing Collaboration News Printmaking What's On

New Story – 3D Printed Homes

posted by Anna April 4, 2018

The 3D-printed home is the proof of a concept that sustainable homebuilding is and will be a possibility. Creating sustainable homes as well as safer and affordable solution means that places like Haiti and rural Salvador can be provided with homes. The printer, which is called the Vulcan has been built and designed to work under high constraints and was created with the aim to tackle housing shortage and vulnerable populations rather that being built with profit motivation – which makes this project even more incredible.

3D printing is doing much more than just printing homes -it also means nearly zero waste, high thermal mass, incredible speed, a new level of choice and resistance. The goal for this project is being able to print houses in less than 24 hours and once and for all tackling housing shortages across underserved communities.

The New Story goal for this project is printing the first community homes in El Salvador in the next 18 months. Through partnerships they will be able to scale up the productions and be able to help more communities over the next years. These houses will feature cutting-edge materials tested to the most recognised standards of safety and comfort as well as resiliency.

Hope is that this project will influence the sector as a whole – through this technology, the team will learn and iterate and share this technology with other non profits and government to help the rest of the world improve housing solutions and reach those in needed.

The innovators behind ICON and it’s three founders Alex Le Roux, Jason Ballard, Evan Loomis and their collaboration with New Story include a team of engineers, environmentalists, designers and entrepreneurs all working together to make shelter accessible once and for all. Icon and New Story are working together closely with other organisation to develop Vulcan with Pump Studios, Yaskawa Electric, Alchemy Builders, TreeHouse, Andrew Logan Architecture, Linestar Automation and the University of Texas.

These 3D printed homes will also be stronger and last longer than standard Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) built homes. We are excited to see how far this project will go in the next 18 months!