Texas is making waves in the real estate industry by being home to the largest community of 3D-printed homes in the world.
The grand opening event on Saturday welcomed prospective buyers to explore the Genesis Collection at Wolf Ranch, a larger master-planned community located north of the Texas capital in Georgetown.
According to an email to CNN from Cara Caulkins — a spokesperson for ICON, the Texas-based construction firm behind the project — several of the 100 housing units have already been sold.
The company uses its 3D robotics to build stronger, more energy-efficient homes using advanced materials, according to its website.
Not only do the components built via 3D printing produce less waste and allow for more innovative designs, but they also exceed strength requirements by more than 350% with ICON’s unique, concrete-based material, Lavacrete.
According to ICON, its homes “are designed to withstand extreme weather and resist water, mold, termites and fire.”
ICON collaborated with the Florida-based home construction company Lennar and the Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to build the Genesis Collection.
The project was announced in 2021, as reported by The Dallas Express, and broke ground the following year.
ICON co-founder and CEO Jason Ballard described the 3D-printed community at Wolf Ranch as revolutionizing the way communities are built at a time when the U.S. confronts a housing shortage.
“The United States faces a deficit of approximately 5 million new homes, so there is a profound need to swiftly increase supply without compromising quality, beauty, or sustainability and that is exactly the strength of our technology,” Ballard said, according to CNN.
The project used robotic printers spanning 46 feet wide to build homes between 1,500 and 2,100 square feet.
The printers were on site and constructed the structural components without using the molds that concrete pours usually require.
This represents just some of the ways 3D-printed buildings make “significant steps towards reducing waste in the construction process,” as Martin Voelkle, a partner at BIG, explained in a statement, according to CNN.
At the same time, critics have noted that 3D-printed homes still largely depend on carbon-intensive concrete, according to CNN. Moreover, there are some concerns over the lack of universal codes to manage the safety and durability of these structures.
Yet the Genesis Collection at Wolf Ranch is not ICON’s first foray into 3D-printed homes.
Together with the nonprofit New Story, it erected 3D-printed homes for people living in extreme poverty in Tabasco, Mexico. The firm has also conducted several projects for the U.S. military, including 3D-printed barracks for troops training at Camp Swift.
Together with BIG and designer Liz Lambert, ICON is opening another 3D-printed residential development containing 30 to 40 units in Marfa, tucked away in the Chihuahuan Desert.
As for the Genesis Collection, it includes eight different floorplans with three to four bedrooms. All exhibit brightly lit interiors and have solar panel-equipped roofs. Costs for these homes range from $475,000 to $599,000.
Homeowners will be able to start moving into the units as early as September, as roughly a third of the homes have been built so far.