A home like this can be built in less than 24 hours at a cost of only $4,000. The secret? 3D printing. And they could help families living in poverty and unsafe conditions. New Story, a housing charity organization, and ICON, a construction tech company, have partnered together.
Their goal is to end global homelessness. Alexandria Lafci: So having strong, sturdy walls, having a door that we can close at night — it’s something that we take for granted. Being able to lock our door and be safe.
For many of these families, for years, sometimes even a lifetime, they don’t have that opportunity to have a safe shelter. So when they move into a New Story community, when they move into a safe home, families lives are transformed. An entire community of these 3D printed homes will be constructed in El Salvador.
The ultimate goal is to get costs down to $4,000 per house with a build time of fewer than 24 hours. This prototype house was built in Austin, TX.
The home measures 650 square feet. Mortar was printed layer by layer. Human workers installed windows, doors, plumbing, and electrical systems. Here’s what’s inside: A living room. Small office space. One bedroom. One bathroom. ICON staff will use the home as an office to test the durability.
Evan Loomis: Our first product is a 3D printer that can print a house in 24 hours for half the cost. Phase one for News Story and for ICON is a proof of concept house and the good news is we’ve done it.
We printed the first home in the United States that’s going to be permitted and for us, this is just the beginning. The real kind of home run for us is to be able to do what we’ve done here in Austin, Texas in the developing world and we’re doing that in what we call phase two which is in El Salvador.
We are going to be printing an entire village for people that don’t have homes.
About New Story:
New Story is a non-profit working to create a world where no human lives in survival mode by providing one of life’s most basic needs – shelter. The organization currently works in Mexico, Haiti, El Salvador, and Bolivia and, in just three years, has funded more than 1,400 homes for families in need. 850+ of those homes have been built and families have moved in. Their 100% model ensures that every penny of each donation goes to build homes while organization overhead and R&D is covered by private donors such as Y Combinator, prominent venture capitalists, and other leading executives. The current $6,500 homes are built to last for generations and each donation is paired directly with a family so donors can see their impact. See more at https://newstorycharity.org/
About ICON:
ICON is a construction technologies company dedicated to revolutionizing homebuilding. Through their proprietary 3D printing technology and cutting-edge materials, ICON provides sustainable solutions to a number of our world’s most pressing issues, including the pandemic of homelessness in the developing world, the difficulty of constructing off-planet space habitats, and the exorbitant cost of customized housing. ICON has recently built the first permitted, 3D-printed home in America in partnership with the non-profit New Story, and is working with them to create a mobile printer for the developing world that has the ability to print a single story, 600-800 square foot home in under 24 hours for less than $4000. As a part of that effort, ICON has developed cutting-edge materials tested to the most recognized standards of safety, comfort and resiliency and is designed to function with nearly zero waste production methods and work under unpredictable constraints (limited water, power, and labor infrastructure) to tackle housing shortages. For more information, visit https://iconbuild.com/
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