Austin, Texas, will soon be home to the world’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood.
The ambitious project, which will start in 2022, resulted from a collaboration between the North American construction company Lennar Group and ICON, a construction technology company that, according to the website Interesting Engineering, was known for printing houses on an entire street in Texas and for building the Mars Dune Alpha, a structure for NASA astronauts to simulate life on Mars.
The idea is to build the largest community of 3D printed homes to date, with a total of one hundred residences, also to show a promising way to respond to the growing demand for housing.
“The shortage of labor and materials are two of the biggest factors that drive away the dream of many American families of having a home of their own”, said Eric Feder, president of LENX, of the Lennar group, in a statement.
“Lennar has always pushed the limits of technological innovation to keep homes quality yet affordable, and 3D printing is a extremely encouraging approach. We are excited to collaborate with ICON to develop solutions to the emerging challenges of the coming years,” he added.
As the same website recalls, ICON uses a robotic printing system that prints at a speed of about 25 centimeters per second and uses a patented construction material called Lavacrete.
“3D printing in construction not only offers high-quality homes faster and more economically, how it can change for the better the way entire communities are built,” explains, in the same note, Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of ICON.
“The United States faces a deficit of approximately five million homes, so there is a deep need to rapidly increase supply without compromising on quality, beauty or sustainability and that is exactly the strength of our technology,” he said.
In addition, the houses will also have photovoltaic roofs, making them sustainable and self-sufficient in terms of energy.
