3D printed houses solve a problem we don’t have

Does anyone still think construction costs or materials are the reason why affordable housing is such a thorny problem?

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The three-bedroom, two-bath home has a corduroy-patterned exterior, rounded corners — and a cement pour that oozed from an industrial-sized toothpaste tube. And most intriguing of all, it comes from a 3D printer.

When the house is finished around November, Kyndra and James Light, a husband-wife development team, will be asking between $175,000 and $225,000 for the 1,440-square-foot dwelling.

No mention of land in the piece…but I knew that before I checked. There never is. But that’s what’s needed, not new technology.

3D printing isn’t the solution because construction costs aren’t the problem. If someone were to apply this to a design like Habitat 67, that would be interesting. Print homes that are designed to fit together in a structure, stack them up, lather/rinse/repeat.

By Taxiarchos228, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Ugly? Maybe. But I’m sure improvements could be made, given that design is almost 60 years old. Or we could just try to replicate the single family home asset model.