A 3D Printed House for Under $4,000

US ENGINEERS have developed a 3D printed house that can be built within a day, at a cost of just USD $4,000. 

San Francisco-based housing charity New Story, who aim to provide permanent housing to slums and disaster relief areas, has teamed up with Austin-based construction startup ICON to create an alternative to more traditional construction methods.

Above and Below: New Story works to build safe homes for some of the world's most impoverished people, but has so far only used traditional methods of construction (images courtesy of New Story).

Since its launch three years ago, New Story has constructed over 850 homes in developing countries, with another 450 in the pipeline.

The non-profit helped build a community of 100 homes in Haiti. There, construction lasted eight months and each home cost USD $6,500 to develop. 

Above: The 3D printed house developed by New Story and ICON in Austin, Texas, can be printed and finished in under 24 hours (image courtesy of New Story).

In order to speed up construction, 3D printing was used in a trial in Austin, Texas. Here, a 650 square foot (60 square metre) home was printed and completed in under 24 hours.

Above and Below: Only walls can be 3D printed for now - roofs, windows and doors are prefabricated and installed on site (images courtesy of New Story).

Although the structure of the house can be printed with relative ease, windows and doors are pre-fabricated and installed on-site along with plumbing and electrical services.

The homes meet the International Building Code and use common mortar materials, which are available all over the world.

Above: The finished interior of New Story's 3D printed house. Below: An artist's impression of scaled-up production (image courtesy of New Story).

Within the next 18 months New Story plan to build a community of 100 3D printed homes in El Salvador. If successful, they aim to build similar homes in the US for use as emergency shelters for the homeless.