Austin-based construction tech company ICON is 3D-printing homes in Texas. The homes, measuring between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet, took between five and seven days of printing time and are selling for around $450k (which is the average house price in Austin, Texas).
This isn’t the first company to produce a 3D-printed house. A New York company, SQ4D, claimed earlier this year to have printed the first house in the US. And a common company that excites Australian investors is Fastbrick Robotics (not quite 3D printing, but robotic bricklaying). The trend here is clear – these new building technologies are coming to disrupt the traditional construction industry. And while they may be some years away, the disruption will come, taking away jobs but making buildings cheaper and faster to build.
And this new technology won’t be restricted to earth. ICON is working with NASA on researching and developing space-based construction systems, with the goal of putting up buildings on the Moon and Mars.
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