When 3D technology builds an entire neighborhood, the world takes note
Published Date 2/18/2020
Everything had to start somewhere. The first self-driving car appeared in the 1980s. And now, in a rural area on the outskirts of a town in Southern Mexico, a giant 33-foot-long 3D printer recently built the walls of the first homes using the world’s first 3D-printed neighborhood.
Fast Company’s Adele Peters reports on how the 500-square-foot houses were finished with roofs, windows, and interiors in late 2019. “New Story, the nonprofit leading the project, believes that the new construction process could be part of the solution for affordable housing in some of the poorest communities in the world,” she says, and quotes the co-founder as saying that they feel as if they’ve proved what’s possible by bringing the gigantic machine down to a rural area in Mexico, in a seismic zone, and successfully printing the first few houses.
New Story was founded five years ago to bring housing to people living in extreme poverty. It has already completed more than 2,700 homes in Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Mexico, using traditional construction. “In Haiti, where aid groups struggled to rebuild after the 2010 earthquake, New Story honed a process to work more quickly to finish homes,” says Peters. With 3D technology, they look forward to working even faster and decreasing costs. Over the past few years, it partnered with Icon, a construction tech company based in Austin, to develop a 3D printer rugged enough to work even in the most challenging conditions.
“Icon’s printer, called the Vulcan II, isn’t the first designed to build an entire house. But the new Mexican neighborhood, which will have 50 of the homes, will be the first community to use this type of technology at scale,” says Peters. “There have been some other experiments with 3D-printed homes, but they have all occurred in controlled conditions or in areas with little risk of natural disasters, and haven’t yet been proven in the real world.”
Challenges to building this community included delays in the process of working with the government to get the land. They ended up changing locations to a state that borders Guatemala, which faces a higher risk of earthquakes, so the design went through even more structural engineering tests. After the tests were successful, the machine started the long journey south on a truck, but it got stuck at customs for three months. The most important test was whether the printer could print a house on the site. That went well, as the printer began squirting a concrete mixture in layers to build floors and walls. “Software monitors the weather conditions, and the machine can adjust the mixture,” says Peters. An app can also be used to make slight adjustments to the blueprint on site, but the printing process is essentially autonomous. “To make it even more efficient, it’s possible to print multiple houses simultaneously,” she says. “The first two homes were printed at the same time, in a total of 24 hours over multiple days, because the team wanted to work only in daylight hours; in the future, they hope to run the machine for longer periods, making it even faster.”
Peters goes on to describe the finished product — and adobe-looking two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bath — all meant for families who earn a median income of $76.50 a month. This means this is the first time ever that they will have indoor restrooms and plumbing and sanitation.
What is the future of 3D printed homes? “The same technology could also help transform the construction of affordable housing in the United States,” says Peters. “Earlier this year, Icon printed a welcome center for a master-planned community in Austin, Texas, designed for people who have been chronically homeless, and the company is beginning to print 400-square-foot homes in the community that will be completed in early 2020.”
Source: Fast Company | WBUR | TBWS
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