ICON is one of the most recognizable names in the 3D printed concrete business. Their highly publicized East 17th Street Residences in Austin, Texas are finally complete and I stayed overnight in one of them!
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:38 3D Concrete Printing
2:47 Exterior design
3:50 Interior design
5:16 Insulation
6:57 Cost
7:34 Conclusion

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The 4 houses are located in a rapidly growing neighborhood in East Austin. They were designed by Logan Architecture and developed by 3Strands. Once concrete foundations were poured, the exterior walls were printed with ICON’s Vulcan printer. They used a proprietary cementitious material called Lavacrete. 1” tall and 2” wide beads of concrete were printed at a rate of 57” per second. The exterior walls have 2 layers, while the interior wall has 1 layer. All the starts and stops are hidden behind window and door openings. Excess concrete was used to make sloped lintels and frames for the windows.

Any concrete used in 3D printing isn’t actually concrete, it’s mortar because it doesn’t contain gravel or coarse aggregates. I’m not sure how strong Lavacrete is, because one page of ICON’s website says that it has a compressive strength of 6,000 psi, but another page says that it is a more reasonable 20003500 psi. The concrete walls, door and window frames were painted with a white elastomeric paint. This liquid paint hardens into a flexible, watertight covering. It can also bridge and repair nonstructural hairline cracks. Only the first floors of the 4 houses have 3D printed walls, the upper floors are made of traditional 2x6 wood framing.

The use of color on the exterior of the house is very successful. The horizontally striated concrete walls on the lower level are painted white. The wood construction on the upper level is clad in vertically striated black metal paneling. This draws your eye upwards and makes the building seem taller than it is.

The interiors are clean and minimalist. Claire Zinnekar, the interior designer, went for a “West Texas” vibe or what I call Marfa chic. I think the exposed concrete walls are a classier version of the overdone wood shiplap walls. The roughness of the concrete walls are contrasted by super smooth, level 5 finish drywall. The kitchen cabinets, flooring, ceiling and even the furniture were all a light wood finish with minimal texture. The joints at the uneven concrete walls are pretty rough. There are gaps at the edge of the countertop, the cabinets, and even at the door frame. That’s just the reality of 3D printing right now, it’s not perfect.

Even though the wind was howling outside, the moment we stepped in and closed the front door, it was wonderfully quiet. The 3D printed walls have a layer of open cell insulation in between, but also rely on thermal mass. Apart from the door and window openings, the inner wall never meets the outer wall, which reduces thermal bridging.

This shows us the advantages of concrete construction over stick building. The house is very insulated and very comfortable. Positive Energy designed an ERV or Energy Recovery Ventilation system for every house. It brings in fresh air continuously at a rate of 70 cubic feet per minute. An Air Handling Unit circulates this fresh air throughout the house. The bathrooms don’t have a traditional exhaust because of the ERV system.

All 4 units have been sold and will be rented on Airbnb and VRBO.
2 bedroom 1.5 bath listed for 1,106 sq ft $450,000
4 bedroom 3 bathroom 1,521 sq ft $745,000
4 bedroom 3 bathroom 1,928 sq ft $795,000

The entire project is very refined and well thoughtout. They take pride in these homes and want the inhabitant to feel that same sense of pride. ICON even embedded a medallion at the entrance to the home. As much as I loved the architecture and site layout, I was disappointed that they printed mostly straight walls. They didn’t explore the 3 dimensional capabilities of the technology. These homes could have been made with CMU block walls or precast panels, but those walls aren’t as enticing as 3D printed walls.

SOURCES
   • 3Dprinted Homes by ICON | Austin, TX...  
   • ICON  3D Printing 2,000 squarefoot ...  
   • 4 3D Printed Houses by ICON Listed Fo...  

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