| 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."  A Vulcan printer system prints the walls of a 3D printed home in the Wolf Ranch development by ICON and Lennar in Georgetown, Texas. Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg Labor shortages, rising material costs and pressure to reduce housing's carbon footprint are driving a tradition-bound industry to innovate. Those shifts led Lennar in 2021 to invest in Austin-based Icon, which has raised $451 million since it was founded in 2017. Icon built its first permitted home, a 350-square-foot residence, in 2018 to demonstrate the abilities of its first-generation Vulcan printer. The machine extrudes a proprietary concrete mixture called Lavacrete, which it lays down layer upon layer to form the exterior and interior walls of a building. The latest iteration of the Vulcan is house-sized itself. The 46.5-foot-wide robot consists of a crossbar that moves up and down between two 15.5-foot-tall towers that sit astride a foundation. Attached to the cross bar is a nozzle that shuttles from side to side.  A layer of Lavacrete will dry in about 15 minutes, eventually fading to a light gray color. Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg On a January afternoon at Wolf Ranch, seven of the robots can be seen layering Lavacrete on foundations that overlook the limestone hills of Georgetown, a rapidly growing bedroom community 30 miles north of downtown Austin. In contrast to the din of a typical construction site swarmed by laborers hammering wood frames and hanging drywall, quiet pervades Wolf Ranch — the silence punctuated by the ambient hum of printers attended to by four workers apiece. The building site is clean, too; there's virtually no construction debris to be hauled off to a landfill. Charlie Coleman, Lennar's Austin division president, expects construction time to be cut 30% at Wolf Ranch. Pricing has not been set but he expects Genesis homes to start in the mid $400,000-range, which is competitive with other new homes at Wolf Ranch. Sustainability and savings are also likely to be selling points when the homes go on the market this year. Concrete is carbon-intensive, but Ballard says the material's use at Wolf Ranch creates nearly airtight buildings that will reduce homeowners' heating and cooling costs, while the solar panels installed on each residence will supply carbon-free electricity. Icon's 3D-printed walls have exceeded building code strength requirements by 350%, according to the company, which allows them to better withstand hurricanes and wildfires. An initiative is also underway to reduce Lavacrete's carbon intensity.  3D printing liberates construction from the geometric constraints of the right angle. The Vulcan can print walls, and even a kitchen island, that swoop, fold and form half shells. Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg Ballard says Icon has "several hundred" more homes under contract with builders, but can't disclose the details yet. Longer-term, the company has more ambitious plans. It is currently developing technology for NASA to construct buildings on the moon, and has 3D-printed a prototype of a Mars structure that BIG designed for the space agency. But when it comes to re-engineering suburbia, Ballard has more down-to-Earth concerns, like getting governments to extend the hours his robots are allowed to operate. "Most municipalities have start and stop times because conventional construction methods are very, very loud," he says. "We are trying to make the case that not only do our robots not need smoke breaks or anything like that, they also are very quiet and should be allowed to work around the clock." Read and share a full version of this story, which features visual media produced in partnership with the Outrider Foundation. Like getting the Green Daily? Subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access to breaking news on climate and energy, data-driven reporting and graphics and Bloomberg Green magazine. | 
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