3D Printer May Be Key to Helping Solve the World’s Housing Shortage
Can a three-dimensional printer be the key to designing and providing inexpensive housing for poverty-stricken people in many of the world’s third world countries? Such a possibility seems to be on the horizon via a technology recently revealed at the South by Southwest (SXSW) technology conference and music festival.
ICON, an start-up based in Austin, TX, has developed large, 3D printers that use mortar, a cement-like building material, along with computer software, robotics and other advanced materials to construct inexpensive houses in a matter of hours. Partnering with New Story, a non-for-profit organization that constructs homes for poor residents in countries such as Mexico, Bolivia, Haiti and El Salvador. ICON believes the technology can be successfully used to address the worldwide housing shortage.
According to the World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable cities, about 1.2 billion across the globe do not have adequate housing. Using ICON’s prototype printer named Vulcan, the company can construct a single-story home of up to 800 square feet in 12 to 24 hours. Right now, the cost of constructing housing of this size runs at approximately $10,000 per unit. However, Jason Ballard, one of ICON’s co-founders, hopes to reduce the cost to less than $4,000 per unit through further research on the prototype printer.
Bigger Than the Tiny House Movement
The prototype house unveiled at SXSW is modest at only 350 square feet and contains a living room, bedroom and bathroom. Future homes will also have a kitchen and a second bedroom with more square footage. With the ability to print a home that measures 800 square feet, the Vulcan can produce homes that are twice the size of the average tiny home movement residence, which average 400 square feet. When compared with the size of a typical New York City apartment, which averages 866 square feet, these inexpensive homes could provide more than adequate housing for families used to living in tiny shacks.
How The Vulcan Printer Works
Vulcan is a gantry-style printer made out of lightweight aluminum that uses a continuous flow of mortar along a path that has been programed via computer. Similar to concrete slip forming, the printer builds concrete layers in rapid succession. During construction of the prototype house at SXSW, ICON ran into several problems that included the mortar getting stuck in the machine. This, and several other minor problems need to be resolved before ICON gives the printer to New Story to construct a pilot program of approximately 100 homes in El Salvador.
New Story is able to construct small homes via traditional methods for about $6,000, so the ICON method could represent a considerable amount in savings that would allow additional homes to be built.
The current process only allows for the printer to construct the exterior of the home, as contractors are required for interior finishing and construction of the roof. ICON is researching the development of robots to complete the installation of windows and pre-fabrication of roofing sections to help further reduce costs.
