Fellowship Stories

The World’s Largest 3D-Printed Neighborhood Is Here
Produced by Eugene Reznik
April 6, 2023
Jordan Vonderhaar for Bloomberg Green

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Launched in 2020, Bloomberg Green is a multi-platform news brand centered on the business, science, and technology of climate change. Offering news, analysis, and solutions, its content appears on the Bloomberg Green website, a daily email newsletter, a weekly podcast, the Bloomberg Green magazine, and the Bloomberg Terminal, with integration across digital video, Bloomberg Quicktake, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg TV+, Bloomberg Radio, and Bloomberg Live events.

Amid the tech boom-fueled sprawl in Austin, Texas, Wolf Ranch at first appears to be another colorfully named but architecturally unimaginative suburban subdivision. Until, that is, you turn a corner and stumble across giant robots building homes resembling waves frozen in concrete.

This 100-house addition to the 2,500 homes planned for Wolf Ranch is called “the Genesis Collection,” and as the world’s largest 3D-printed community, it is indeed sui generis. A collaboration between Lennar Corp., the US’s second-biggest home builder, and 3D-printing startup Icon, Genesis represents perhaps the most significant innovation in residential construction in decades. If it can scale, 3D-printed construction promises to deliver energy-efficient homes that can be built faster and more affordably, in novel designs and with minimal waste. The concrete structures are also more resilient to increasingly intense climate-driven hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves.

“I think we'll look back and say this was a pretty pivotal moment in the history of construction,” says Jason Ballard, Icon’s cowboy hat-wearing co-founder and chief executive officer. “I do think 3D printing and robotic construction are necessary to end the global housing crisis.”

Eugene Reznik

Eugene Reznik is a features photo editor at Bloomberg News and a 2022/23 Outrider fellow.

 

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