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A startup is 3D printing houses in under a day at a cost of about $10,000 each, and hopes to get it down to $4,000 each:
ICON has developed a method for printing a single-story 650-square-foot house out of cement in only 12 to 24 hours, a fraction of the time it takes for new construction. If all goes according to plan, a community made up of about 100 homes will be constructed for residents in El Salvador next year. The company has partnered with New Story, a nonprofit that is vested in international housing solutions. "We have been building homes for communities in Haiti, El Salvador, and Bolivia," Alexandria Lafci, co-founder of New Story, tells The Verge.
[...] Using the Vulcan printer, ICON can print an entire home for $10,000 and plans to bring costs down to $4,000 per house. "It's much cheaper than the typical American home," Ballard says. It's capable of printing a home that's 800 square feet, a significantly bigger structure than properties pushed by the tiny home movement, which top out at about 400 square feet. In contrast, the average New York apartment is about 866 square feet.
The model has a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a curved porch. "There are a few other companies that have printed homes and structures," Ballard says. "But they are printed in a warehouse, or they look like Yoda huts. For this venture to succeed, they have to be the best houses." The use of cement as a common material will help normalize the process for potential tenants that question the sturdiness of the structure. "I think if we were printing in plastic we would encounter some issues."
Also at Fortune, Wired, and BGR.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday March 17 2018, @04:49AM (3 children)
You seem to be a little confused about what building codes are. They are a set of unfunded mandates and prohibitions. A building code might say "plywood used as exterior sheathing shall be of 3/8" or greater thickness." That doesn't mean that poor people are entitled to 3/8" plywood. It means that were they to attempt building with 1/4" plywood they would be hassled by The Man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @09:05AM
What it more likely means is that developers building for undeserving (poor) people would be more likely to use shoddier components than when they build for the deserving (well off) people.
While some people do build their own homes with their own hands, that's a minor exception rather than the rule.
Relaxing building codes in this fashion would similar to increasing allowable heavy metals (lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, etc.) in the food and water of poor folks, but retaining the lower allowable levels for wealthier ones. The argument being that we can give these folks more of what they need, we just need to do it cheaper -- and if that's more dangerous for them, that's just too bad, they're poor people after all. They don't really deserve to be treated like real humans.
And as long as it doesn't directly impact you, that's perfectly fine isn't it?
(Score: 2) by Bobs on Saturday March 17 2018, @03:57PM (1 child)
Maybe you are being sarcastic. But in our area, during the last residential building boom, builders would set up a new corp, build a bunch of houses using cheap/shoddy methods, sell the houses to people who can't see inside the walls, then dissolve the corp and disappear. rinse and repeat.
The homeowners have no recourse when their new house starts falling apart after a year or two because there are gaps behind the siding, etc.
So there is no practical market-based recourse to fix this.
Sometimes, the only/best way is to have regulations and inspectors to make sure something is done properly as the general public doesn't have a practical way to independently do so.
Sure, some codes and regulations can be bad: but having none is almost always worse once people start trying to make money off of a thing.
Free/unregulated internet good: ISP's inserting ads into your feed: bad.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday March 17 2018, @09:02PM
You and AC are both arguing against strawmen while missing the point. I didn't see anyone in the thread suggest that regulations relating to basic safety should be removed altogether. The question here is how overly extravagent building codes can help poor people who are living in cardboard boxes because they can't afford to live in any kind of legit, bureaucrat-approved house.
Your story about shady builders is missing some key information. Did they build houses which failed to meet existing codes, in which case the problem was simple fraud on their part, the local government failing to enforce the codes, and the buyers overpaying due to an assumption that codes had been followed? Or are you trying to say that there were no regulations in effect and the houses were sold without any guarantees? I find that doubtful, based on your description of the legal ninjitsu that these builders apparently felt the need to employ. But even so, I don't know what recourse you expect the buyers to have in this case. If you buy a $100 car AS-IS, don't expect the seller to come fix it for you when it breaks down.