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3D-printed neighborhood nears completion in Texas
- egypturnash 2y agoOh look, a suburb printer. Thirty minutes from Austin? I wonder if there's any grocery stores or places to gather any closer. So what if it's printed? Still looks like a miserable place designed more for cars to live in than humans.
- CyberDildonics 2y agoSeems a little defeatist and missing the forest for the trees.
- throwawaymaths 2y agoyou don't have to wonder. 8 minutes by bike: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Lennar+at+Wolf+Ranch/wolf+ranch+town+center/@30.6297068,-97.7066229,14z/data=!4m8!4m7!1m2!1m1!1s0x8644d5e285426cf1:0x4003ade9bfb22ab5!1m2!1m1!1s0x8644d6782df0d885:0x690d7dc7d376d12a!3e1 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Lennar+at+Wolf+Ranch/wolf+ra...
- anonym29 2y agoTransportation from point A to point B isn't the only function of most cars on the road these days. Relevant to central Texas in the summmer: 115° bike rides do not sound fun.
- jdbernard 2y agoLol, Georgetown isn't really a suburb of Austin. It's a separate city that is almost as old as Austin, home to the oldest college in Texas, and is the seat of an entirely different county. So yeah, there are a few places to gather and get groceries. ;)
- nullc 2y agoNo one is going to make you live there. Other people have preferences that are different from yours and are not less valid.
- NicholasGurr 2y ago[flagged]
- foxglacier 2y agoIt's OK, they have an HOA which prohibits short term rentals, renting to non-families, wooden fences, etc. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aea220096e76febe0e35a37/t/6605bc7b9a61f42e0cff6033/1711651963138/Rental+Restrictions.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aea220096e76febe0e35...
- iamleppert 2y agoWhy would someone want one of these ugly homes for $400k when for that price you can buy something much nicer?
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoTexas is McMansion country, and these seem to be a notable upgrade over those at least. Kind of a throw back to ranch or shotgun houses.
- silisili 2y agoI'm usually neutral on suburban hellscape buyers, but it's getting ridiculous. It made more sense to me I guess when 1/4 acre lots were standard. But these...man. The houses appear to be just a few feet from each other, and the yards are utterly pointless. I can't believe I find myself saying this, but it would have been much nicer to just build nice condos in the middle, and use the rest as shared greenspace.
- xsmasher 2y agoShared space sounds like communism. /s
- mwambua 2y agoI wonder if 3d-printer lines will someday become a desirable aesthetic - like film grain.
- OutOfHere 2y agoTornado-proofing, if actually so, is enough reason to prefer it, although I'm quite skeptical that it is protective as such.
- xnx 2y agoGlad to see new building techniques being attempted in real world scenarios. 3d printed structures will be most compelling when they do more things that are difficult or impractical with traditional techniques: curved walls, built inside, ornamentation, patterns, etc.
- lnsru 2y agoThere is nothing you can’t do with classical drywall. Curved walls, ornamentation, patterns, integrated furniture… you name it. 3d printing has a huge limitation here - you need support to print over empty area. I am sure it’s not fun removing concrete support pieces from huge concrete structure without cracks.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago> There is nothing you can’t do with classical drywall. Curved walls, ornamentation, patterns, integrated furniture… you name it Okay, I name compound curves. Can I do that with drywall?
- lnsru 2y agoYes you can. It’s the frame behind drywall then. Probably CNC cut plywood construction. And it’s more art than anything you might get from standard construction company. And crazy decorative art can be made from gypsum and integrated into drywall.
- dghlsakjg 2y agoIt’s a trick question sorta. You can’t make a compound curve out of sheet material. Drywall can bend in a single axis only. If you add a second axis (compound curves) it won’t really work. Think about trying to drywall a sphere. The best you can do is a high poly sphere.
- ChoGGi 2y agoThat's what the mudder is for ;)
- kouru225 2y agoCan we please 3D print a city block next time?
- beretguy 2y agoGood thing is it provides better insulation than wood.
- ternnoburn 2y agoA lot more CO2 though, and less repairable.
- AngryData 2y agoMaybe if you compared it to the cheapest 2x4 construction that would cost 1/4 the amount. If you spent even just half of the structural cost on a better wood design you can have offset 2x6s 12 inch spaced stud walls for an 8 inch thick wall space. I don't see how any masonry work no matter how low density could have better insulation values.
- userbinator 2y ago3D printed concrete, to be exact; and the cost benefits over traditional cast concrete seem unclear to me.
- nullc 2y agoThere is a huge amount of time and materials-- for the forms-- that go into building a cast concrete structure. Those are the bulk of the cost. Additionally, shapes with voids or curves are even more expensive to form via traditional means while the printing technique can do them naturally.
- ternnoburn 2y agoIf you have the ability to pump concrete, and a gantry across the whole site, why wouldn't you pick and place concrete blocks or other materials rather than concrete the whole thing on site? Also, aren't these walls significantly more CO2 unfriendly than lumber, and more difficult to renovate? What if I need to get a builder in to do repairs, is there a concrete wall guy who knows how to repair them? Can it print multi family housing? It takes four weeks to print, which seems long to frame a single story three bedroom house. If the home buyer isn't feeling savings, what's the draw here.
- tmountain 2y agoIt’s a gimmick. There is no point other than marketing.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago"It’s a gimmick" Early attempts always look gimmicki. Putting a camera in a phone, crazy, who needs it, just a gimmick. I use my phone to dial numbers and make calls. This looks like it has a lot of room to grow and adapt. Materials change. Just look at how 3d printers have changed in 10 years.
- ibash 2y ago3d printers haven’t changed that much… they’ve gotten easier to use, sure, but the materials and quality we’re printing is about the same as 10 years ago.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoMaybe it was 20? I just remember they took expense fluids, hard to keep, fragile. Then month ago I was in a Micro Center, and there were dozens of very fancy printers that could take dozens of types of line feeds.
- 6SixTy 2y agoFeels like 3D printers have changed. A slicer from 10 years ago is not going to generate as good a print as one from today. And it feels like the variety of filaments from 10 years ago has greatly changed.
- dhosek 2y agoWhen I was working at USC-ISI back in 2009–10, there was a project about doing 3D printing for construction taking place there back then. I was a bit surprised to learn that not only was this company not derived from those efforts, but according to their website, “In 2018, we told people we were going to 3D print a house and unveil it during SXSW in Austin, TX before we knew how to do it.” I wonder what ever happened with that ISI research work.
- magic_smoke_ee 2y agoSeems pointless and expensive, and it's concrete that doesn't lend itself to modification or repair. 3D printing in this case appears to be used as a tech gimmick rather than an actually-scalable process, or it would already be in-use everywhere. The most inherently sensible home would be protected from wind (derecho, hurricane, and the uncommon tornado), fire, flooding, and severe heat and cold (and associated climate control costs) by building mostly underground on flat, stable, high ground.
- Simon_O_Rourke 2y ago> The most inherently sensible home would be protected from wind (derecho, hurricane, and the uncommon tornado), fire, flooding, and severe heat and cold (and associated climate control costs) by building mostly underground on flat, stable, high ground. If I had the luxury of time and money that's the kind of home I'd build out, probably with a few Maginot line type turrets peeking out from the "roof".
- magic_smoke_ee 2y agoFor light, I'd have one or more glass or glass block domes on top. I kind of like the idea of the conjoined egg-shaped rooms, but not the practicality of cylindrically- or compound-rounded walls.
- RobGR 2y agoI have toured the Icon houses at Wolf Ranch. I went through their show house, but I also went to some of the houses under construction and examined them and talked to the workers a bit. You couldn't approach them them while the printer was running -- note also, they have a next-gen printer that looks more like a cement pumper crane arm, these were the previous ones. Anyway the modification of them is addressed in some of the videos in the show house. Essentially you use a circular saw with masonry teeth to cut new holes, they provide shade-matching grout to fill in an old hole. It's less flexible than sheetrock but about what modifying a cinder block wall would be. Unlike most cinder block commercial buildings, the wiring is inside the wall and not in an exposed conduit, there might have been one exception in a bathroom or something. Over all, to my non-professional opinion, it seemed more expensive than traditional "stick built" but also higher quality, probably worth it if you wanted a high quality structure. I have also visited their site in South Austin on St. Elmo, and the small "tiny houses" they built in the Community First village for the ex-homeless, but I wasn't able to go inside those. My overall impression is that it's a great technology that will be used for more and more structures. Thus far I think they have been too traditional in their floor plans, they have been focusing on showing that they can build real up-to-code houses that banks will accept as collateral. Hopefully with their new cheaper printer, maybe in some area outside of HOAs and zoning, they can starting making some more interesting houses -- like round towers Victorian style, for example.
- jiveturkey 2y agoI think everyone is missing the real reason for this. From TFA: > requires fewer workers what TFA didn't say, and which I'm sure is also true, is that the workers can also be less skilled. I found it fascinating that interior walls are also concrete, and wifi signals are blocked. I betcha cellular doesn't fare too well either, and not easily fixed with multiple access points.
- janalsncm 2y agoI don’t care how many workers it takes if the result still costs $600k. Unless the houses can sell for half of traditional housing costs their main market will be building houses on the moon.
- jiveturkey 2y agoThe builder cares. The buyer doesn't care too much either way what the construction technique is. They will be sold on the high insulation value, tornado resistance and so on. Not the fact that it costs less to build which is opaque anyway.
- mikebelanger 2y agoHow would plumbing and wiring work? The article states that the wall is a semi-hollow, corduroy pattern, so do the printers leave openings in the walls so pipes/wiring get shoved into them after?
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- RobGR 2y agoYes. I visited that site and examined some of the partially constructed buildings, and talked to a couple of the workers. They have videos discussing how you would add a light switch or remove one -- basically a mansonry hole saw, and matching grout to fill in. It seemed slightly more trouble to do modifications than a cinder block wall, but the quality and strength was much higher. I went with low expectations but I was impressed. I didn't see any walls at the stage of construction where I could see what the insulation was, whether is was expanding foam or fiberglass.
- mikebelanger 2y ago> It seemed slightly more trouble to do modifications than a cinder block wall, but the quality and strength was much higher. I went with low expectations but I was impressed. So the electricians and plumbers would all come in after the wall was printed, and saw through it all? Sawing, adding and then filling it back in sounds like lots of work to me. With stick-frame, wiring and plumbing are still a significant cost, but the actual hole-making part would be a small proportion of it.
- wstrom 2y agofor more detailed info watch https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiw0-uvzNSKAxWe78kDHdWLLf0QtwJ6BAgPEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfPTps7e9SqY&usg=AOvVaw3fXsAN8RDHTEs9OKin_vAT&opi=89978449 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video...
- SapporoChris 2y agoWhy not a direct link? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPTps7e9SqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPTps7e9SqY
- binary_slinger 2y agoLots of cynical takes here. Its cool. Time will tell if this method makes sense. One concern I have is in Texas the extreme weather and clay soil causes foundations to move. Lots of houses have foundation problems. Foundation shifts will likely translate into cracks.
- kentbrew 2y agoGetting a strong cybertruck vibe from this neighborhood.
- jqpabc123 2y ago"...range in price from around $450,000 to close to $600,000." In other words, there is little economic incentive to recommend this construction method. Not much in the way of aesthetics either --- unless you want a ranch box.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- brudgers 2y ago3D printing doesn't relieve any important construction constraints and probably raises costs because unfamiliarity increases risks and increased risk increases price. Superstructure is about the easiest and fastest part of residential construction. Sitework, finishes, and MEP systems are harder, tend to take longer, and cost more. Anyway, market rate housing sells at market rates no matter how it is built.
- liontwist 2y ago> market rate housing sells at market rates no matter how it is built. This is true. Do you see any opportunity for efficiencies in rebuilds?
- brudgers 2y agoWhat do you mean by “efficiencies?”
- liontwist 2y agoLike you mentioned the market for housing is more about where people want to live, and the actual building on it is less important (up to first order quality and space), so that optimizing construction costs doesn’t really save money on housing. But suppose we have a country of aging housing. Could prefabrication techniques result in lower costs when replacing existing buildings without a land transfer?