3D-Printed Homes: A Revolutionary Housing Solution in Texas

A giant 3D-printer is literally building a neighborhood in Texas

A massive 3D printer is building 100 homes in Georgetown, Texas -- or rather, printing them. Once finished, the project will be the largest 3D-printed neighborhood in the world, Reuters reports. The 3D robotic printer completing the task is made by a Texas-based company, ICON Technology. The printer, called Vulcan, weighs nearly 5 tons and is 45 feet wide. It can construct homes less wastefully, faster, and cheaper than traditional methods, ICON says. The neighborhood's one-story homes with three to four bedrooms, made with a concrete mixture, take three weeks to print. But it requires far fewer workers. ICON's senior project manager Conner Jenkins told Reuters, "where there were maybe five different crews coming in to build a wall system, we now have one crew and one robot." That raises questions about the labor force impacts of the giant printers, should they become widely popular building tools. Some 4.7% of the U.S. labor force in 2022 held jobs in the construction industry. In Texas, the construction industry accounts for 5.6% of the state's labor force. Despite claims that robots will assist humans with their jobs rather than replace them, even AI leaders have contended that rapidly evolving technology will make some jobs obsolete. Some 60% of companies across the globe working in consumer goods production and the oil and gas industries project that robots will replace some of their workers' jobs, according to a 2023 World Economic Forum study. The use of robot tech is already proliferating across industries. For example, BMW this month began using a humanoid robot at a factory in South Carolina.

Here's How Much It Costs to Own a 3D-Printed 'Fortress' Home in Texas

Though U.S. mortgage rates are now at their lowest level in 15 months, home prices are still high. As the U.S. faces a shortage of 4.5 million homes, construction company Icon is using 3D printing technology to mass-print houses -- and it's wrapping up the final properties in a 100-home, 3D-printed community in Georgetown, Texas. Icon uses a 45-foot-wide 3D printer and fills it with a combination of concrete powder, water, sand, and other materials. The printer then pipes the mixture, layering it until it stacks up to form a house. Related: I Designed My Dream Home For Free With an AI Architect -- Here's How It Works The project to build 100 of these 3D-printed homes in Georgetown, Texas, started in November 2022 and is slated for completion by the end of the summer, according to a Reuters report. The homes are single-story, three to four-bedroom structures that take up 1,500 to 2,000 square feet. Each one costs between $450,000 and $600,000. In comparison, the median listing home price in the area was $499,900. The exterior and interior walls of each home are made out of 3D-printed concrete, which Icon says can hold up in extreme weather. Icon says that 3D-printed homes have several advantages over traditionally made ones. The company claims that the concrete materials make the home soundproof, energy-efficient, and carbon-friendly. The homes also take less time and money to build -- one human crew and one robot could replace five different human crews, the company says. Icon has sold about 25 of the homes in the community so far. One resident told Reuters that the house "feels like a fortress" capable of withstanding a tornado. Besides 3D-printed homes, Icon is also testing an AI architecture bot that can churn out floor plans for a dream home.