Courtesy
Housing is so expensive that many people cannot afford it. ICON Vulcan is a 3-D printer that uses concrete to build the basic structure of a home ground up. The Austin-based company, ICON, is able to build houses with drastically reduced time and cost. In 2018, ICON delivered the first 3D-printed home to receive a building permit in the U.S. In order to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of home-building, the innovators tested different methods and finally decided that 3-D printing, combined with robotics and advanced materials, is the best. They believe that 3D printing has many advantages, including high speed, saving human labor, using affordable materials, producing minimum waste, and allowing design freedom. In addition, 3D printing can take care of multiple systems of home, including foundation, structure, insulation, moisture barrier, etc. The inventors have worked out many technical and legal challenges in bringing this into fruition. The company developed a proprietary formula for concrete for the printing purpose. The material is called Lavacrete. It can flow easily but can also settle accurately when being printed.
After a year’s development, Vulcan II was released on March 11, 2019. It is claimed to be the first printer that can print homes that people actually want to live in. Because of the improvement in automation and software, people only need basic training to use the printer through tablet-based operations. Now the machine can print the walls of a house in 24 hours and then a partner company will construct the roof, windows, doors, and electrical and plumbing components. The total construction time for a whole house may be cut in half.
Link: https://www.iconbuild.com/vulcan
Contact: https://www.iconbuild.com/contact
Location: Texas, US
Mentioned: among the best inventions of the year by Time
Purpose
Reduce the time and cost of home building
Idea
3D printing houses
Further Possibilities
1. 3-D home template or design for sale
2. a website for sharing 3-D home designs, like Thingiverse.com
3. An AI-based app that turns a picture of room into a 3-D model
4. Build 3-D model of all famous buildings or sites, thereby creating a digital copy of the physical world
5. A virtual world designed as 3-D models might actually be turned into a physical world
Questions
1. What would Steven Jobs do with 3-D printing technology?
2. What might be all the ways to digitalize physical objects?
3. What might be all the things that should not be 3-D printed?
