Problem: Building houses require unique time, money, and resources even though much of the process is deeply repeatable. While many companies are attempting to 3D print houses, many of them require transporting resources from around the world to be printed. Are there innovations on this model? Is there a way to print houses more sustainably?
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Solution: The business would develop technology that takes existing earth and repurposes these natural resources to create houses. The 3D printed house movement is not new, in fact many news organizations like CNBC and The B1M have featured it globally to millions of viewers. Where this business would innovate is by trying to create zero-waste (and zero-import) printed 3D houses.
Just this week, I learned that “Mario Cucinella Architects and Wasp, Italy’s leading 3D printing company, have completed the first house to be 3D-printed from raw earth.” They utilized a process called Tecla (technology and clay) to create eco-sustainable and environmentally friendly production by using local soil.
The house they designed is, quite frankly, stunning.
They could also be used to address the national housing shortage which Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan proposes to tackle. As reported in a recent study from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Housing, the U.S. housing crisis has been made even worse during the pandemic, with middle-income households of frontline workers being impacted most significantly. As described by Michael A. Spotts of the LUI Terwilliger Center for Housing,
Patterns of housing insecurity and racial and socioeconomic inequality that existed prior to COVID-19 have been exacerbated by the pandemic and the associated economic downturn. We are staring in the face of a situation in which many of the people who were critical in getting the population at large through this crisis face years of economic uncertainty and hardship as the country recovers.
The ULI Terwilliger Center found that, “among middle-income households, those that are most greatly cost-burdened are located in the most populated metro areas in the country” (those exceeding 4.2 million people). Moreover, inman news adds, the dearth of attainable homes for this socioeconomic group is a widespread issue across the U.S., as is the ability for low-income individuals to find attainable rentals.
Perhaps then, 3D printing can be a solution. It’s no surprise then that news organizations have been talking about the innovation for years.
Ultimately the promise of sustainable and cheap 3D printing can be a revolution in the affordable housing market.
Monetization: Selling these houses. Currently, there are a variety of different prices. As reported by Interesting Engineering,
3D printed houses are still something of a novelty and are largely still in development, but you can 3D print a house for a lot less money than having one built using more traditional construction methods. For some of the projects that are currently in development, costs are somewhere in the order of $10,000, although this is for a relatively small structure.
According to a report from The Verge on ICON's operation techniques "the 3D-printed house would be made of cement and take up to one day to be printed by large, 3D printing robots. Best of all, the homes would cost just $10,000. And ICON hopes that eventually, it can bring the cost of homes down to $4,000."
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)