3D-printed homes are no longer a fantasy thanks to Austin based construction technology company ICON. This new project was held in East Austin, where four houses were built using 3D printing technology.
Each house is now available for a starting price of $450,000 USD, which nowadays is not even the median home price in Austin, and they are between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet. The structure and first floor of each house was 3D-printed, while the upper floors were built by tradicional construction.
Designed by Logan Architecture and developed by 3Strands of Kansas City, ICON’s houses were printed in less than a week using Lavacrete, which according to the company is a proprietary cementitious material much more durable than other traditional materials. They will be ready for move-in by midyear.
Icon’s Vulcan printer offers more safer and resilient homes: they can stand up to different types of natural catastrophes, such as fire, flood and wind, better than traditionally built homes.
Up to now, ICON has built a total of 24 3D-printed houses in Texas and Mexico as well. Moreover, the construction company has also stated that it has been working alongside NASA on “PROJECT OLYMPUS”, researching and developing a space-based construction system. This partnership’s goal is to ultimately put up buildings on the Moon and Mars.
ICON is not the only one using 3D printing technology. The California based bicycle brand Superstrata has built the world’s first 3D-printed custom unibody carbon fiber composite bike and e-bike.
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