Just outside Austin, in Georgetown, Texas, brand new planned communities sprawl out as far as the eye can see, which is pretty far in this part of the country. But one small subdivision instantly draws focus. Just completed, it is now the world’s largest 3D-printed community.
Two years ago, Lennar, the nation’s second-largest homebuilder, partnered with Icon, a 3D technology company, to print 100 homes in the Wolf Ranch development. The companies say about 75% of them have already sold.
All the walls have rounded edges, as that’s how the printers navigate with the concrete. The layering process makes it feel like hard, wide-wale corduroy. The roofing is the only part of the structures not 3D-printed, and, in this community, is made of metal. Each home is solar-powered.
Lennar and Icon 3D printed homes.
Diana Olick | CNBC
“We have a durable product here that if you look at its wind resistance for hurricanes, its fire resistance for fire-worn areas — the ability to adapt modern product to what we need for the future in housing and building a healthier housing market is amazing,” said Stuart Miller, chairman and co-CEO of Lennar.
Icon started the project at Wolf Ranch in 2022, using two 40-foot robotic printers. By the second year, the company was using 11 machines, cutting print time in half and squeezing out two homes per week. Each printer does the job of more than a dozen construction workers. The systems operated 24 hours a day.
“All the learnings about this technology need to happen at scale,” said Jason Ballard, CEO of Icon. “The truth is in the field, not in the lab.”
Ballard said his team had to work out large-scale logistics with Lennar’s teams, everything from laying foundations to printing walls, installing interior systems and adding roofing.
“Figuring out how to integrate with Lennar’s operations, who are probably the best scale builders in the world, was a real growing up moment for our company,” Ballard said.
Lennar and Icon 3D printed homes.
Diana Olick | CNBC
The homes have all the amenities of a conventionally built Lennar community. They come in 2- and 3-bedroom models and start at just under $400,000.
Holly Feekings and her husband, both retired, moved into their 3D-printed home about a year ago. She said the best part of living in the printed home is her electric bill — just $26 last month. Concrete retains its temperature, heat or cold air, better than her previous standard colonial, Feekings said. She also likes the home’s durability.
“I feel safer in this house than any house I’ve ever lived in, because it’s so well built, it’s not going to burn down,” said Feekings.
Around the corner, Pierre Megie and his girlfriend were drawn in by the look and feel of the home.
“We wanted tall doors, taller ceilings, cement floors, somehow, and this home had everything. Really just a combination of energy efficiency, the practicality, the price point, and then the aesthetics,” said Megie.
Lennar and Icon 3D printed homes.
Diana Olick | CNBC
The community was an experiment for Lennar. The cost to stand it up, according to Miller and Ballard, was slightly higher than anticipated as they worked through the kinks.
Miller said Lennar is now planning its second 3D-printed community in Texas with Icon, roughly 200 homes, which will cost even less to build, given what the companies learned in Georgetown. The next community will have larger homes, and Ballard expects them to go up even faster, and cheaper.
“We’ve seen our costs go down by half. We’ve seen our cycle time go down by half. This is significant improvement in evolving a housing market that has the ability to change over time and being more adaptable and more functional in providing affordable and attainable housing for a broader swath of the market,” said Miller.
As for the rising risk of tariffs between U.S. and trade partners, Ballard said all of the concrete his company uses is sourced stateside.
