Building a home using traditional construction methods quickly takes months. US startup ICON wants to significantly speed up this process using a high-tech 3D printer. Through additive manufacturing, the startup claims to be able to build a home of around 55 to 75 square metres within 24 hours. Thanks to the use of a 3D printer, costs can also be halved compared to traditional house construction.
ICON is a startup based in the US state of Texas. The company has developed a 3D printer called Vulcan. Using this printer, the company claims it can not only build homes cheaper, more sustainable and faster, but also improve the quality of homes and give homeowners more opportunities to design homes to their own liking.
First home printed in Texas
The company has printed a first home in Austin, Texas, that is fully compliant with building regulations. This home was printed using the Vulcan, a mobile 3D printer specifically designed to operate under unpredictable conditions. These include constraints on available water, energy, labour and infrastructure. The Vulcan was developed by ICON and New Story in collaboration with parties such as Pump Studios, Yaskawa Electric, Alchemy Builders, TreeHouse, Andrew Logan Architecture, Linestar Automation and the University of Texas.
With the Vulcan, ICON plans to work with New Story to build small and affordable homes for homeless families in the South American country of El Salvador over the next 18 months. These are homes with an area of 55 to 75 square metres, which can be printed in less than 24 hours for a cost of $4,000. The use of a 3D printer allows a lot of flexibility in design. Thus, the houses are designed in collaboration with future residents, who can express their wishes for their specific home. In time, ICON aims to scale up production through partnerships to provide more communities with affordable homes in the coming years.
Helping eliminate homelessness
"It is our responsibility to fight against traditional building methods and commit to eliminating homelessness. Linear methods will never be able to reach the more than one billion people who need safe homes," said Brett Hagler, CEO of New Story. "By partnering with ICON and leveraging their innovations in 3D printing, we can reach more families exponentially faster with the best possible shelter."
"Conventional construction methods have many ingrained drawbacks and problems that we have taken for granted for so long that we forgot to think of alternatives," states Jason Ballard, co-founder of ICON. "With 3D printing, not only do you have a continuous thermal building envelope, a large thermal mass and virtually no waste, you also have speed, a much broader design palette, more flexibility and the ability to make a huge leap in affordability. This is not a 10% improvement, but by a factor of 10."
Next step in evolution of housing construction
On its website, ICON compares the development of the Vulcan to previous revolutions in housing construction. Around the year 1,200, for instance, carpentry and architectural techniques were first standardised. Around 1880, the industrial revolution followed, with climate control and industrial production of building materials emerging. Around 1950, power tools and new materials were first used to build homes, which accelerated construction by a factor of 10 and reduced the cost of homes. ICON predicts that 3D printing will be the next big step in the evolution of housing construction.
By the way, ICON is not the only party that wants to use high-tech systems to speed up and make home construction cheaper. US Caterpillar invested $2 million in 2017 in Fastbrick Robotics, an Australian company that has developed a robot that can brick 1,000 bricks per hour. This robot - named Hadrian X - can build the walls of a standard residential house in just two days, according to Fastbrick Robotics. Chinese company Winsun also already realised a number of small 3D printed houses in 2014 and a 3D printed office complex was completed in Dubai in 2016.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: ICON (pictured)
Source: New Story
