Mateo, a 27-year-old entrepreneur, solves the housing problem: “1,300-square-foot concrete houses built in 48 hours”

When Mateo Salvatto says a 1,300-square-foot concrete house can be built in 48 hours, it sounds more like a claim from a technology expo than a construction site. The key, however, is not to imagine a fully finished home ready to move into after two days, but to understand which part of the building process 3D concrete printing actually changes.

Salvatto, co-founder of Grondplek, explained to Argentine newspaper La Nación that a 1,300-square-foot home can have its concrete shell completed in 48 hours thanks to a large-format 3D printer. That distinction matters because the machine does not deliver a finished house complete with plumbing, electrical systems, doors, windows, paint, a kitchen and functioning bathrooms. What it prints is the concrete structure, including walls, staircases, planters and even countertops. The finishing work, final details and everything else that turns a structure into a livable home come afterward.

Grondplek’s system uses a large machine measuring approximately 36 feet by 36 feet and 23 feet high, capable of printing with a mixture of cement and additives. The operation relies on a compact mixing plant, a pump and a special hose that feeds the print head. From there, the material is deposited layer by layer, with pauses between layers to allow the concrete to set and maintain the stability of the structure.

The process is almost the reverse of traditional construction. Instead of erecting formwork, pouring concrete, waiting, removing molds and correcting imperfections, the system aims to place only the material needed, exactly where the design requires it. According to Salvatto, this precision reduces waste and speeds up a critical phase of construction. The company says its homes can incorporate double walls with an air gap, a solution designed to improve thermal and acoustic insulation. It also maintains that the resulting structures can be earthquake-resistant.

The entrepreneur sums up the promise with a striking proposition: a finished house in one week, potentially costing up to 30% less than the market rate. As always in construction, that figure depends on the land, the project, the scale, the finishes and the conditions of each building site. But the appeal of the proposal goes beyond making an individual home cheaper. It is about automating one of the most labor-intensive, slow and repetitive parts of the construction process.

Salvatto insists that 3D concrete printing is not intended to replace construction workers, but rather to shift some of their responsibilities toward operating equipment, supervising processes and completing finishing work. The machine can reduce physically demanding and repetitive tasks, but it still requires planning, human oversight, technicians to adjust the concrete mixture and workers to complete everything beyond the printed structure. The house of the future, at least at this stage, does not print itself.

Grondplek emerged from a search that took Salvatto and his partners to Europe, where they discovered the technology developed by Danish company COBOD, which they wanted to bring to Argentina. Grondplek describes itself as a distributor and operator of 3D concrete printing technology in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Its arrival in the region has been linked to a partnership with Techint Engineering & Construction, a major name in Latin American civil engineering. The technology’s initial applications are not limited to housing, either. They also include industrial components, walls, chambers, drainage systems, infrastructure elements and solutions for larger-scale construction projects.

3D concrete printing should not be viewed simply as an eye-catching way to market houses that can be built quickly, but as an industrial tool capable of transforming construction-site logistics. Salvatto describes it as a “portable precast concrete factory,” a machine that can be transported to a site, leveled on the ground and put to work much more quickly than traditional methods allow.

The promise still needs to be tested at scale, supported by regulation, comparable real-world costs and completed projects that demonstrate its performance beyond the initial excitement. But the direction is clear: construction, one of the industries most resistant to change, is beginning to look toward the future. In a sector where time is almost always lost before it can be saved, printing a home’s concrete shell in 48 hours and having the entire house ready in a week would be a genuine revolution.

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