Turning to technology to build more houses
If the U.S. builds as many homes as it did last year, experts predict it will take an average of seven and a half years to close the housing gap. How do we speed up construction? One way might be to increase the production of 3D printed houses. This technology is starting to take off in Texas and a few other states. Could it make sense in other parts of the country?
The Housing Shortage
According to the 2025 Housing Supply Gap Report, the Midwest has the second largest housing gap after the Northeast. According to the report by Realtor.com, “If the 2024 trends continue, the South would be able to close the housing supply gap in three years, while the West would take 6.5 years, the Midwest would take 41 years and the Northeast would not make any improvement in the gap.”
The U.S. Census Bureau reports more than 1.6 million homes were built in 2024. That’s the highest level in nearly 20 years. Realtor.com credits an increase in multifamily and “the highest single-family completions since 2007.” But the report also points to a lack of affordability, low availability and the slowing of multifamily starts.
Could 3D printed houses help increase the supply?
How to build a 3D printed house
Modern day fully permitted 3D printed houses started to emerge in 2018, but historians say the world’s first 3D printed building can be traced to an Indiana inventor in 1939. William Urschel’s Wall Building Machine used an automatic ramming mechanism to compress the concrete between spinning disks. This consolidated and smoothed each layer as it came out.
Today giant robotic arms squeeze out a mixture of specialized concrete. Picture a tube of toothpaste extruding the material layer by layer. The consistency has to be just right so the concrete can flow through the nozzle and hold up the next layer.
It’s important to note the 3D printer just prints the walls. The rest of the house is constructed by traditional means.
It can be a complicated and expensive process. Consequently, only a handful of construction companies are doing it.
Where it’s being done
Texas
The construction technology company ICON has plans for hundreds of 3D printed houses in suburban Austin, Texas. It’s already built more than 100 in what it says is the “world’s largest 3D printed community.” Seventy-five percent of the homes, ranging in price from $450,000-600,000, have been sold.
PBS’s This Old House took a tour.
ICON initially used two 40-foot robotic printers. By the second year it was using 11 machines, cutting the print time in half and doing two homes per week. The company told This Old House each printer does the job of more than a dozen construction workers.
Ohio
The Ohio Newsroom reports Sustainable Concrete Innovations isn’t the only one testing the market. Pantheon Innovative Builders of Youngstown has partnered with Ohio State University to research 3D printing for workforce and affordable housing. Vitruvian is studying the viability of bringing 3D homes to Central Ohio and “Cleveland’s City Council has even floated a proposal to buy a large-scale 3D printer for housing.”
Michigan
The nonprofit Citizen Robotics built Michigan’s first 3D printed home in 2023 in Detroit and sold it for $224,000. The house took more than a year to build as the organization fought an uphill battle with code, policies and practices and was required to reinforce the walls with more concrete because 3D walls weren’t allowed to be load bearing.
The administration of Governor Gretchen Whitmer funded much of the project and called it a “cutting edge endeavor.”
Alaska
In Nome, Alaska a 3D printed home is being built to withstand the state’s extreme weather. It’s seen as a test case for a larger development. Researchers concluded in this 2021 study on 3D Printed Homes in Rural Alaska, it would have a significant impact to increase the housing supply, it would hold up to the weather and would be cheaper (an avg. Of $12.97 per square foot, as compared to $51.38 per square foot) than using conventional methods.
Another industry study looked at where 3D printed houses are gaining traction.
Alper Real Estate Study
The Alper Real Estate Group spent more than 200 hours over three years studying the prevalence of 3D printed houses and roadblocks to its future. It released this report in 2023.
It is estimated by the end of 2023 3D printed homes would likely number in the 1,000s.
States who “pioneered” 3D printed homes include:
- Oregon-producing homes and announced intent for others
- Virginia-completed several charitable homes and open market homes, and prepares to build affordable homes.
- Florida-printing large communities and custom homes
- New York-first spec 3D home likely in New York (2018), other construction underway, including affordable.
- Arizona-have completed prints and are also working on communities, as well as efforts to help other countries.
Credit: Alper Real Estate Group
Other findings from Alper include:
- Affordable 3D printed housing has not begun yet on a large scale in the U.S., but research and proof of concept builds are underway.
- Habitat for Humanity and other nonprofits have begun to print homes for families. Grants from government organizations such as Virginia Housing and private donors have made this possible.
- For 3D to take off prices must come down, large builders need to invest in printers and the building code must adjust.
Using other materials besides concrete
Concrete isn’t very environmentally friendly. Making it releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And it absorbs and retains heat which can lead to higher temperatures in cities. What other materials are being considered?
MIT PhD architectural candidate Sandy Curth has designed and built 3D printed houses with soil from the building site.
He told Brick by Brick, “We (builders in general) put a lot of dirt into landfills, but that material, when calibrated or adjusted a little bit can be a really good building material and have really good thermal properties and also has a very low climate impact and is of course very cheap because it’s just dirt.”
Here are 3D buildings he helped design and construct in Colorado.
Curth says mud buildings can stand up to the weather because they’re sturdy. “There are earthen buildings made of nothing but earth and a little bit of straw that are 11 stories tall that have stood in Yemen for 1200 years.”
Other mud 3D projects are underway including ones in Spain, Portugal, the U.K. and Kenya.
Through his firm FORMA Systems Curth is also using lightly treated mud to make molds for concrete. Usually these “formwork” molds are made from wood, steel, fiberglass or plastic, as is explained here.
Benefits
Using American-made concrete, builders don’t rely on lumber and the rising risk of tariffs.
3D printed homes potentially can be built faster. ICON, using 11 printers operating seven days a week, can churn out two homes per week. There is no waste and you can build a house with a concrete curve.
And once built, concrete 3D printed homes take less electricity. Wolf Ranch (ICON’s development in Austin, TX) electricity bills were $26 in February 2025.
Limitations
Dr. Ali Memari, Penn State Professor of Residential Construction and Director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center has built and studied 3D homes. He says one limitation is there is no established building code.
That was one of the difficulties in Michigan. The Detroit house took more than a year to build as Citizen Robotics had to deal with code, policies and practices and had to reinforce the walls with more concrete because 3D walls weren’t allowed to be load bearing.
In 2018 the academic publication IOP Science said 3D printing could save as much as 35-percent compared to a traditional build. But The Texas Real Estate Research Center reported the cost savings are only for constructing the walls and in stick-built homes, framing is the fastest and cheapest part to complete.
Dr. Memari echoed that, saying the 3D part is only for the walls and then it becomes like every other house-with potential delays and higher costs. Plus, there’s the risk of concrete cracks in colder temperatures. Builders say they plan for this. John Smoll, owner of Ohio’s Open Vision Builders, and partnering with Sustainable Concrete Innovations, puts expansion joints within the walls. “So, we’re controlling the cracking. The cracking is natural in concrete, but it has to happen in predetermined areas.” He says, “And so, we do the same thing. We use the knowledge that we have of concrete and just basically turn that from a flat work or into something that’s poured in a form that takes a lot longer to set.”
ICON told This Old House the cost of its homes is on par with traditional builds. Memari says so far, the turnkey approach, like ICON is delivering with a complete house, is the best method. Otherwise, 3D homes don’t make sense.
One limitation for builders is the cost of a 3D robotic printer, about $800,000. In some cases, the companies are in the process of developing proprietary material, which takes time and money.
Looking Ahead
It’s unclear when more builders will buy into 3D, and if the technology can be used for affordable housing. Sandy Curth’s mud houses are gaining traction, but he is cautious saying, “I hesitate a little bit to suggest that this is some kind of solution to mass housing in a rapidly developing or urbanizing city like Nairobi. I don’t know if this technology is quite there yet where that’s actually really going to be helpful in that context.” He is encouraged about their viability in California.
Some builders are already going full speed ahead in “traditional” 3D printing. The United Arab Emirates want to have 25-percent of all new buildings constructed using 3D by 2030. The West Japan Railway Group reportedly just built a train station shelter in two and a half hours.
The technology still has a long way to go. Construction would have to increase 100 times to even get to approximately 1-percent of the market of new home stick builds in the U.S., according to the Alper Real Estate report.
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Ann Thompson – Host, Producer
Over the last thirty years in Cincinnati, Ann Thompson has brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting. She has reported and anchored for WVXU, WKRC, WCKY, WHIO-TV and Metro Networks and freelanced for NPR, CBS and ABC Radio. Her work has been recognized by the Associated Press and she has won awards from the Association of Women in Communications and the Alliance for Women in Media. She is a former News Director and Operations Manager. Ann has reported from India, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Belgium as part of fellowships. Ann thinks of the Brick by Brick project as “journalism for good.” She serves as host and producer. Ann lives in Anderson Township with her husband Scott. They have two boys. Jake graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2022 and Kurt attends West Point.
