Can 3D-printed homes withstand a changing climate?
The home building industry is primed for innovation — and the advancements may help new homes weather a changing climate.
For Jason Ballard, the future of housing is 3D printing. As the co-founder of Icon, a construction technologies startup that uses 3D printing in place of traditional construction, Ballard believes that, rather than framing walls and hanging drywall, workers of the future will use robots to spit out ribbons of concrete.
While some worry that this will take away construction jobs, Ballard believes it will transform them.
"I think the world will see that coming," Ballard told 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl. "And so, instead of learning to be a carpenter, they'll just learn to be a robot operator."
How is a home 3D printed?
Ballard's startup is on a mission to show the world this change is approaching. Icon is starting in Texas, where they are currently building the world's first large community of 3D-printed houses. Each of the 100 houses in the development starts with a sack of dry concrete powder, which gets mixed with water, sand, and additives before being pumped into the robotic printer. The printer completes one layer every 30 minutes, and after every 10th layer, steel is added for strength.
The process is automated — but it still requires a human touch. For now, Icon only prints the walls, with cutouts for plumbing and electricity. Construction workers add the roofs, windows, and insulation the traditional way. And, Ballard said, because there is currently a dearth of skilled labor in construction, he envisions spending the next decade or two trying to shore up human labor shortages.
"It will be a long time coming before we're, like, actively displacing jobs with what we do," Ballard said.
How 3D-printed homes face climate change
In the meantime, Ballard said his company's 3D-printed homes will be ready to withstand the extreme weather already brought on by climate change.
Third-party labs have evaluated the strength of Icon's concrete walls through shear and compression tests, analyzed the walls for thermal performance, and assessed how they withstand flooding and seismic forces.
According to Ballard, these evaluations have determined that Icon's structures are 2.5 times more energy efficient and 3.5 times stronger than the building code standard in Texas. Ballard said the homes have passed a 200 mile-an-hour wind certification, can withstand fire for two hours, and are not at risk of being eaten by termites.
"That's why this feels like lightning in a bottle," Ballard told 60 Minutes. "And that's why this feels like this needs to transition to becoming not a little niche that serves a small group of customers. We need to be doing most of our building this way."
The video above was originally published on October 8, 2023 and was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.