The world’s largest community of 3D-printed homes, under construction in Texas, is expected to welcome its first residents in September, 2023. Part of a wider development in Georgetown, Texas called Wolf Ranch, the community is located 30 miles north of Austin. The project is a collaboration between Texas-based construction firm ICON, the homebuilding company Lennar, and the Danish architectural practice of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
The 100-house addition to the Wolf Ranch development is called “the Genesis Collection,” and could well represent a significant innovation in residential construction. If it can scale, 3D-printed construction promises to deliver energy-efficient homes that can be built faster and more affordably, in novel designs, and with minimal waste. The concrete structures are also more resilient to increasingly intense climate-driven hurricanes, wildfires and heat events.
The walls of the housing units are made from a concrete mix called Lavacrete, which is piped into place using robotic printers. After the walls are printed, the doors, windows, and roofs — replete with solar panels — are installed. The 3D-printed homes range in size from 1,500 to 2,100 square feet and have three to four bedrooms.
Faster, Cleaner, More Affordable
ICON first announced the project in 2021, describing the community as a “watershed moment in the history of community-scale development.” Using 3D-printing technology, their exception is to deliver high-quality homes both faster and more affordably than conventional building methods. Similarly, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has indicated that 3D-printed building technology represents “significant steps towards reducing waste in the construction process, as well as towards making our homes more resilient, sustainable and energy self-sufficient.”
Independent research suggests that printing homes can reduce carbon dioxide emissions and construction waste. 3D printers can construct buildings without formwork (the concrete molds that cement is typically poured into), which can significantly reduce overall use of the material. Cement is responsible for about 8% of global CO2 emissions annually.
Printing Technology
ICON’s robotic “Vulcan” printers are fully automated, working according to a pre-programmed design. The Vulcan printer is house-sized itself, a 46.5-foot-wide robot consists of a crossbar that moves up and down between two 15.5-foot-tall towers that sit astride a foundation. Attached to the cross bar is a nozzle that shuttles from side to side. The machine extrudes a proprietary concrete mixture called Lavacrete, which it lays down layer upon layer to form the exterior and interior walls of the building.
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