The Largest 3-D Printed Neighborhood In The World Is Nearing Completion In Texas
The largest 3D-printed neighborhood in the world is nearing completion. Wolf Ranch is a community of 3D-printed homes, and it is located alongside the San Gabriel River in Georgetown, Texas.
The project began in 2022 with the aim of constructing 100 homes. Now, two years later, the final touches are being added. The last few homes at Wolf Ranch will soon be printed.
The settlement is a collaboration between ICON, a startup based in Texas that specializes in large-scale 3D printing, and Lennar, one of the biggest homebuilders in the United States. The homes are co-designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, a renowned architectural firm.
“We are very pleased to partner with ICON and BIG in building a first-of-its-kind, printed home community that combines innovative designs with sustainable features at an affordable price,” Stuart Miller, the Executive Chairman of Lennar, said.
“Given the housing shortage that persists across the country, it has never been more important to innovate in order to find new methods of construction that will enable greater design flexibility and greater production at affordable prices.”
Each home is built using a giant 3D printer. Concrete and other materials are layered on top of each other, building the house from the ground up.
The walls of the house’s exterior are ribbed, and a standing seam metal roof is placed on top. The roof is decked out with solar panels to give the household power.
According to ICON, 3D printing allows homes to be built quickly and efficiently. It reduces material waste and is more environmentally friendly and “architecturally striking.”
This is also the first time in the history of the world that robots are constructing an entire community of homes.
Jandrie Lombard – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Jason Ballard, the co-founder and CEO of ICON, believes that drones and robots will be responsible for building neighborhoods, towns and cities in the future, and the Wolf Ranch community will be touted as the place where large-scale robotic construction all began. However, he does acknowledge that we still have a long way to go before that happens.
Residents have already started moving into the community. At Wolf Ranch, there are eight different floor plans that range from 1,574 to 2,112 square feet of living space.
The homes have three to four bedrooms and two to three bathrooms. Prices start at around $430,000.
ICON’s projects aren’t just bound to Earth. In 2022, the company received a $57.2 million contract from NASA to develop construction technologies to support the building of infrastructure on the Moon and Mars.
To help further NASA’s efforts in space exploration, ICON’s construction systems will mainly utilize lunar and Martian resources as building materials. They plan to erect 3D-printed structures, such as landing pads, houses and roads.
Would you ever live in a 3D-printed house on Earth or another planetary body?
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