3D Printed Houses in the US by 2020

• John Vandivier

<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17101856/3d-printed-housing-icon-shelter-housing-crisis">ICON and New Story debuted a 3D printed house at SXSW. 3D printed houses have been around <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUdnrtnjT5Q">for over a year, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k74rb7xl3aY">kind of around since 2014, but they have been made outside the US and non-compliant with US building codes. ICON's printed house was the first of its kind to be fully permitted in Texas, and as far as I know it was the first in the USA.

ICON is a startup still in stealth mode, so not everything has been cleared up, but <a href="https://www.iconbuild.com/faq">what has been stated at this point is already amazing:

  1. \"The first permitted, 3D printed house was created in ~48 hours of total printing time and for around $10,000...We’re presently working on Vulcan II, which should be able to print a standard house in under 24 hours.\"
  2. \"ICON’s mission is to allow you to download and print your home in 24 hours for half the cost. We’re aiming to begin printing homes in the U.S. beginning in 2019.\"
Imagine what it would do for our economy if everyone could purchase a home at such low cost!

I wrote ICON with the below request for additional information, stay tuned in case they respond:

Main interest: Purchase (of multiple units). I blog and know some others with whom I'd share responses to the below. Small chance I might be interested in investing, so feel free to send those details to my address as well.

2 sets of related questions: 1 - You state: "ICON’s mission is to allow you to download and print your home in 24 hours for half the cost. We’re aiming to begin printing homes in the U.S. beginning in 2019." Half the cost of what? A traditional home? What figure do you have this at? Is this for the same floor plan built in Austin? 2 - What do you think of the business model of buying a bunch of printed units and leasing them? Will custom build services be made available for multi-unit or custom floor plan builds? Are the units strong enough to stack? How much does a unit weigh? Could a unit be shipped via commercial truck?