3D-printed houses home in on eco-friendly appeal in US

In some of the hottest housing markets in the US, 3D-printed homes are now competing for attention with traditionally built houses－with the developers touting their cheap, safe and eco-friendly features.

The US housing market has flourished since the COVID-19 pandemic depressed housing inventories last year, and new buyers are encouraged by low mortgage rates and the ability of many to work remotely.

In Riverhead, New York, on Long Island, a 3D-printed house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a 2.5-car detached garage is listed for sale through the Zillow platform with an asking price of $299,999.

The house will be built with concrete by SQ4D, a New York-based construction technology company using an "Autonomous Robotic Construction System".

It is touted on the company's website as "the first 3D-printed home slated to receive a certificate of occupancy" in the US.

The company said its patent-pending technology lays concrete layer by layer, robotically building the footings, foundations, interior and exterior walls on site. It offers a 50-year limited warranty on the 3D-printed structure.

Stephen King, a Zillow agent who has the listing, said the price is 50 percent below the cost of "comparable newly constructed houses" in the area, according to SQ4D's promotion on its website.

In Austin, Texas, another construction technology company, ICON, also claims to have the US' first 3D-printed homes for sale. Partnering with Kansas City developer 3Strands, the company is building homes of two to four bedrooms in Austin, the Texas capital.

Construction technology

ICON's 3D printer－known as Vulcan－is about 3.6 meters tall and is 10 m wide. It can print walls up to 2.5 m tall and foundations up to 8.5 m wide.

The 3D-printing construction technology can "precisely control the deposition on concrete over a large print area", so it can build a house in weeks, the company said.

The technology will help address the "extreme lack of housing that has left us with problems around supply, sustainability, resiliency, affordability and design options", said Jason Ballard, CEO of ICON.

In the US, the first 3D-printed housing community will be built in Rancho Mirage, a desert resort city in California, according to developer Palari.

Covering about 2 hectares, it comprises 15 houses and is set for completion by next spring. Each house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms on a 929-square-meter lot with a swimming pool and deck for $595,000.

All the houses will be made from 3D-printed panels by Mighty Buildings, a California-based construction technology company.

The company uses panelized technology, called the Mighty Kit System, to print a stone-like material. Unlike SQ4D and ICON, which work on the building site, Mighty Buildings ships the panels to the site, where they are assembled.

The houses in the Rancho Mirage project will take a month to install as opposed to three to six months using traditional methods, Palari CEO Basil Starr told the Los Angeles Times.

The presale campaign started in late February and sold out within days, said Starr.

Apart from the construction speed, the companies also emphasize that 3D printing is more eco-friendly than conventional building methods because 3D printers generate the precise amount of material, while houses built with wood frames result in construction debris.