This cheap 3D-printed home gives hope to a billion homeless.

The most basic necessity of humans is food, clothing and shelter, but 1.2 billion people around the world live without housing. This fact is as per the report by the World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. 3D printing has come to rescue as an Austin-based startup ICON, will unveil its approach to combat that deficiency by using low-cost 3D printing as a feasible solution.

ICON has come up with a method for printing a 650 square foot single-story house out of cement in only 12 to 24 hours. If all goes according to plan, a community made up of about 100 homes will be coming up for residents in El Salvador in Central America, next year. The company has partnered with New Story, a nonprofit organisation that is engaged in international housing solutions. New Story is already engaged in building homes for communities in Haiti, El Salvador, and Bolivia.

The first model, already unveiled in Austin in March 2018, is a step toward providing shelter to those in underserved communities. One of ICON’s three founders, Jason Ballard says, he is going to trial the model as an office to test out their practical use. “We are going to install air quality monitors. How does it look, and how does it smell?”

The 3D printer used is the Vulcan printer. ICON can print an entire home for an estimated cost of $10,000 and is in process to cut down the cost to $4,000 per house. “It’s much cheaper than the typical American home,” Ballard says. It’s capable of printing a home that’s 800 square feet. An average New York apartment is about 866 square feet.

The model unveiled has a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a curved porch. “There are a few other companies that have printed homes and structures,” Ballard says. “But they are printed in a warehouse, or they look like Yoda huts. For this venture to succeed, they have to be the best houses.” The use of cement as a common material will help bring more faith for potential tenants that question the sturdiness of the structure. “I think if we were printing in plastic we would encounter some issues.”

Once the material quality testing and tweaking of the design is complete, the company will move the Vulcan printer to El Salvador to commence construction. ICON says its 3D-printed houses will create minimal waste with reduced labor costs. The company also intends to build homes in the US eventually. It’s a compelling solution to solving housing shortages but one that could be contentious among labor unions that represent workers.

Such initiative is almost cliché as tech innovations happen in the high-end, for-profit segment long before they are passed down to the masses, where innovation could serve the greatest social good. ICON and New Story are challenging that front also. ICON and Treehouse believes 3D printing is going to be a method for all kinds of housing,

The company can be called having a way ahead future vision as they already looking past the global housing crises to think about communities that will one day live off-planet. “One of the big challenges is how are we going to create habitats in space,” Ballard says. “You’re not going to open a two by four and open screws. It’s one of the more promising potential habitat technologies.”

Update:

Another company FastBrick Robotics has designed a robot machine that can build a house in just 2 days. Here is a video of same: It is named Hadrian X