A typical single-family home in the US takes an average of six and a half months to build, according to the Census Bureau’s latest survey. Now an Austin-based startup called Icon[1] can erect a house nearly 200 times faster—in a day.
- WHAT:
The Vulcan, a house-building 3-D printer - SIZE:
12.5 x 22.5 x 35 feet - WEIGHT:
1 ton - TOP SPEED:
5 inches per second
To be fair, the company is building houses that max out at 800 square feet, but that’s not the limit. The hyperspeed fabrication is the work of a megasize 3-D printer—picture a MakerBot[2] on steroids—named the Vulcan. Engineers run digital blueprints for the home through so-called slicer software, which translates the design into the programming language G-code. That code determines where the printer moves along its track, extruding 3⁄4-inch-thick layers of concrete like icing on a cake. The base material—a finely calibrated mix of cement, sand, plasticizers, and other aggregates—gets poured into a hopper at the top of the printer and flows onto the rising walls below.
Casey Dunn
The resulting abodes, which will cost $4,000 to build, are the latest addition in the ubiquitous tiny-house movement. (Icon’s ultimate goal is to alleviate the housing crisis; the company is exploring partnerships with FEMA and Fannie Mae.) In 2019, Icon intends to ship the Vulcan to El Salvador, where it’s slated to print 100 homes for disadvantaged families. But the startup’s next excursion may be even farther afield: Icon is participating in a NASA[3] competition to develop printable space habitats using “indigenous materials,” the planetary soil available onsite. Once again, the Vulcan may boldly go where no human has gone before....