Is 3D printing the answer to the housing crisis?
In a rebuke to the standard economic model that demand drives supply, housing prices in the US these days continue to rise. How much of this is due to local regulation vs cost of new home construction is above my pay grade. But the claim is that 3D printed homes can mitigate shortages in affordable new home construction:
“Dozens of 3D-printed homes have been built across the world – to house a family in the US state of Virginia or members of an impoverished community in rural Mexico. The world’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood is currently under construction outside of Austin, Texas.
“The technology could be especially handy in a place like the US state of Maine, where approximately 80,000 new homes will be needed by 2030 to address a shortage, according to a report released last year by three state agencies.
“People can’t find homes, they’re very expensive. We also have an aging population … so there’s less and less people who are electricians, plumbers, or builders,” Habib Dagher, the executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center (ASCC), told CNN via video call.”
3D printed wood composite homes
“Dozens of 3D-printed homes have been built across the world – to house a family in the US state of Virginia or members of an impoverished community in rural Mexico. The world’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood is currently under construction outside of Austin, Texas.
“The technology could be especially handy in a place like the US state of Maine, where approximately 80,000 new homes will be needed by 2030 to address a shortage, according to a report released last year by three state agencies.
“People can’t find homes, they’re very expensive. We also have an aging population … so there’s less and less people who are electricians, plumbers, or builders,” Habib Dagher, the executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center (ASCC), told CNN via video call.”
3D printed wood composite homes
Having built more than a few things, I don’t see how it can be done at scale
On-the-other-hand, if sucking carbon out of the atmosphere is going to work we’ll need something to do with the solid waste it produces
Star Trek replicators …
@Ten,
3D-printed houses produce significantly less waste than conventional construction, as builders are able to print exactly the amount of material they need for a given project, and minimal space is needed for storage materials.
“The question remains: Is it scalable? Can 3D homes become a real option for widescale affordable housing?
“As a part of the team that designed and planned this nation’s first livable 3D homes, we can unquestionably say the answer is “yes.””
I’ve seen that. By scale I meant can we build them as fast as we need them
Which, of course, we’re not doing anyways …
Joel:
Yes, on the less waste.