I'll admit to seeing the post at 4 in the morning and not bothering to read the article before responding.
Who could ever live in a concrete home without fear of it crumbling on your head from an earthquake?? Signed - someone who probably lives in something like this
I think that looks very cool and the cave like feel is oddly comforting to me. I do wonder about wind and earthquake resistance though. Concrete can be brittle without concrete rebar to give it tensile strength. Concrete wall also has the benefit of better sound and heat insulation, pest resistance, and fire resistance. Adding electrical outlets and lights must be a lot more work though. Patching up small holes from hanging items must be more difficult too.
World’s largest community of 3D-printed homes unfolds in Austin Construction on the largest neighborhood of 3D-printed homes in the US will begin in Austin in 2022
Well I was going to say yes I would live in a 3D printed house but I wouldn't if I had to live in a suburban neighborhood where all the 3D printed houses look exactly alike. That would feel like hell to me.
i read that it was lennar homes doing this - theyre a massive national builder so i wonder if that means were going to see more of this. i also read about these coming into austin - modular homes that you snap together like legos. you can buy a one bedroom house and then add extra rooms onto it. theyre kind of cool looking and its interesting to see companies willing to try something new. austin is a good place for this as it will appeal to many millennials and tech people. https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/...gos-new-developer-enters-the-modular-hom.html Building homes 'like Legos': Modular developer rolls out plans for 2,000-plus acres across region As housing prices skyrocket, companies turn to pre-fab methods; Millionaires living next to factory workers? Austin’s burgeoning modular housing market has a new entrant: Neu Community Inc., which is developing three communities across the metro, the first of which is set to open this fall. The company has purchased 400 acres of forest in Bastrop County — about 20 minutes from the new Tesla factory — and is in the process of buying 66 acres on the shore of Lake Travis and about 2,000 acres near the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. Executives aim to create three housing cooperative communities composed of homes built with Neu’s proprietary modular units. The company plans to open a showroom in Austin on June 12, after which its business operations arm will be based in the city. The architectural and design arm is currently located in Los Angeles, and the engineering and research teams are based in Italy. Jonathan Jenkins said is to prevent people from being siloed into neighborhoods by income level. “You can have Tesla line workers who make $60,000 a year and a Tesla executive who makes $120,000 a year living in the same community,” Jenkins said. The starting price point is noteworthy in metro Austin, where the median home sale price hit $460,000 in April. The houses are made of modules that function like building blocks — buyers can purchase a one bedroom, one bathroom home and continue to build on by adding modules. Each mass-produced component is built from materials including steel, aluminum and glass. “They are like Legos, they literally can click and connect,” Jenkins said. As housing stock in Austin remains persistently low and median prices continue on an upward trajectory, pre-fabricated homes provide one vision for the future of workforce housing, and Neu is not the only player pushing the trend. Modular housing developers, including the publicly traded SG Blocks Inc. (Nasdaq: SGBX), have been converting shipping containers into residential and commercial space around Austin for some time. Paul Galvin, CEO of SG Blocks, said modular is one of the fastest-growing subsectors of the construction industry. He said it has the potential to reduce construction costs, expedite timelines and help consumers bypass rising housing costs. “Somebody once said, there’s a reason why Ford doesn’t build your car in your driveway,” Galvin said. He added that local contractors shouldn’t fear the modular construction wave, but rather find ways to hop on board. SG recently announced its purchase of more than 50 acres on Lake Travis to build a condo community. “Modular construction is here to stay,” Galvin said. Austin-based Bob’s Containers, in its third year of business, has turned a profit and is eyeing a national expansion because of high demand. “One of the things we’ve done that’s been successful is we targeted developers,” said Robert Balderas, CEO of Bob’s Containers. “If you have idle land, we can put container homes there, make a resort out of it at a fraction of a cost and rent it a lot faster.” Other companies disrupting the traditional homebuilding model in Austin include Icon Technology Inc., which uses a massive 3D printer on wheels to construct a house from the ground up. Neu started in 2015 primarily building commercial spaces but transitioned into the housing market. The company clocked widespread interest in workforce housing communities and chose Austin as the place to test the waters. Jenkins said Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape was particularly receptive to the company’s plans. The forest property in Bastrop County that's not far from the Tesla factory will be the first to come online in the fall. Jenkins said the company is looking to expand further in Bastrop County. Neu has partnered with Aspiration Bank, which is helping market the communities and certifying the homes as net carbon neutral. Jenkins did not disclose the financial partners involved in the project but said they will be making public announcements in the coming weeks. He did say the burden of the largest capital investment — the land itself — was mitigated by a few factors. Competition for the land among developers wasn’t particularly fierce, despite the aesthetic value. The properties would be topographically challenging for traditional builders to do anything with, but Neu’s designs allow them to build within the constraints of a forest or a hillside. The company also benefited from timing. Neu locked in the price of the acreage before the market really began heating up. The website for the new developments launched last weekend and already more than 650 people have reserved spaces in the communities as either buyers or renters, Jenkins said. Operating under a cooperative model, buyers do not own the land on which the houses sit, but instead receive a stake in the community. Austin Realtor Matt Holm, who’s heading sales for the new communities, said the benefit of these modular homes is price and timing. “If you started developing dirt right now, you’d be 18 months to go vertical, and another six to nine months to actually produce something. So you wouldn’t be living in a house until 2024,” Holm said. “We’re talking about creating a solution that can create housing, and an amazing price in six to eight months, which is I think something that just doesn’t exist in the market.”
Most home in Southeast Asia are built using cinder blocks and concrete. However they are reinforced with rebar. I wonder if that is even needed with these. But to answer the original question, yes I would live in this. Much better than the way most apartments are slapped together.
This is cool but based on the design wouldn't be more cost effective to make it out of shipping containers?
This is an actual photo in Mexico. There are numerous neighborhoods in other areas of Mexico just like it with identical houses. Good luck on a night out with the boys.
