Jason Ballard, CEO and co-founder of Austin-based construction startup Icon, envisions a future in which the home-building process powered by robots and artificial intelligence could cost half of what it does today while producing dignified, more sustainable homes .
The startup, best known for its 3D printed houses, is trying to tackle the challenge one piece at a time, with a roadmap that includes reducing architectural costs and building material costs, as well as exploring cheaper, faster and easier construction methods.
Icon, which 3D printed its first home at South by Southwest in 2018, has grown to over 400 employees and has printed more than 100 homes at a lower cost and faster than traditional construction methods.
The company often unveils large projects and other announcements at SXSW, including 3D printed homes, an amphitheater and an affordable housing competition. With this year’s festival, Ballard says the company has reached a high point and the beginning of its next chapter.
“For most of our existence, we’ve talked about the potential of technology,” Ballard said. “This is the year we’re actually there. We will show our receipts.”
On Tuesday, Icon held an event during SXSW where the company made numerous project announcements, unveiling its latest printer, new concrete building material, a design catalog and an artificial intelligence tool that allows people to create their own home designs.
“It enables us to create a more beautiful world that reflects the things people want and value, in a way they can afford,” Ballard said.
Ahead of the festival, the CEO sat down with the American-Statesman to discuss the company’s journey so far, its new technology and Icon’s roadmap.
Icon reveals new printer and building materials
Since its inception, Icon has manufactured its own giant 3D printers, capable of printing living walls layer by layer and allowing the company to create boundary-pushing designs with elements such as curved walls. This year the company is introducing a new printer that can print not only on walls, but also on the foundations and roofs of houses. Ballard said the new printer, called Phoenix, eliminates some of the biggest limitations of its previous gantry-style Vulcan printer systems while reducing costs and expanding design potential.
Phoenix, which looks like a crane but is actually more like a building-scale robotic arm, has an extensive range of motion that allows it to print in a consistent line regardless of the weather or design.
Until now, Icon mainly built single-family homes that had to be printed linearly. The new printer, which the company will be using on projects starting next year, is capable of printing multi-story buildings, which Ballard said was one of the biggest requests from customers and means Icon will now be able to do almost to serve all types of built homes in America.
Melodie Yashar, vice president of building design and performance at Icon, said the new printing technology offers an unprecedented ability to construct “larger, more eccentric and more amorphous three-dimensional shapes” compared to the company’s previous printers.
“With Phoenix, we are able to deliver the complete enclosure of a 3D printed structure and not just the vertical wall system,” said Yashar. “The Phoenix printer form factor opens up new possibilities for designing multi-story buildings.”
Ballard said that for Icon to get to the point where it can build homes for half the cost, it will have to approach the home-building process one piece at a time.
“Every new robot we deploy can reduce the cost of the problem it addresses by 10 to 30 percent,” Ballard said.
For example, Icon’s printers have made building walls 30% cheaper, and the company expects similar savings on foundations and roofs with the new printer. Ballard said Icon’s ability to reduce the time it takes to build walls and roofs also helps reduce costs.
The company’s print shops have long used Lavacrete, a special type of concrete developed by ICON that is extremely durable and printable. But Ballard said that while concrete is a sustainable material overall, it emits a tremendous amount of carbon each year because of the amount we use to build it.
This year, the company is introducing a new concrete building material called CarbonX that aims to reduce its carbon content while further reducing costs.
“To achieve mass adoption, finance is a real thing,” Ballard said. “You have to make it easy for people to say yes to the things they want.”
Starting in April, Icon will transition exclusively to the new material in all of its 3D printers and plans to make the concrete available to other projects and customers for construction purposes beyond 3D printing.
“The pressure is finally where we wanted it to be six years ago. We can do the things we wanted to do. The material is scalable and has a responsible impact. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to do,” Ballard said.
Expanding design possibilities with a new catalog and AI tool
Ballard also wants the home designs to feel more human. But given the high cost of architects in the United States, most homes are built without an architect, he said.
“The result was these custom-built homes,” Ballard said.
Icon’s Wednesday announcements aim to make design more accessible in two different ways: by releasing a catalog of designs people can use and by unveiling an AI tool. The catalog, which features homes that can be built from $99,000, includes designs from Icon and outside architects that can be used by anyone.
“The idea is that you can choose the design you want; It won’t break your budget or your schedule because it’s there and ready,” Ballard said. “You don’t have to choose between a beautiful project, an economically sustainable project or an affordable project.”
However, if any of the designs don’t catch your eye, Icon also announced on Wednesday that it would be allowing the general public to beta test its new AI tool, named Vitruvius after the ancient Roman architect.
The tool allows users to design any type of home they can imagine based on size, aesthetics, and other elements. Vitruvius works similarly to AI bots most people might be familiar with, such as Dall-E or ChatGPT, but the tool is more than just an image generator. The tool has been fed hundreds of designs, including many from the Bjorke Ingels Group, which has worked with Icon on a number of projects.
The tool allows you to dream up anything from traditional homes to a “moon base” inspired East Texas home or a Hobbit style home. Each design includes a floor plan and multiple options based on style and budget. According to Ballard, unlike other image generators, the AI ​​tool designs homes that can exist within the parameters of real-world construction techniques.
“It’s not that hard to get an AI system to spit out images; It’s harder to coordinate the rest to really understand how construction works,” Ballard said. “You had to teach (the AI ​​tool) to become an architect.”
Ballard said the tool, which took about 18 months to build and will be free for now, will soon be able to adapt to schematics such as the location of rooms or the color of a doorknob, as well as budgets.
Ballard said the AI ​​system was developed in part at the suggestion of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Ballard said the company had always tried to develop a software tool and eventually an AI tool, but decided to jump straight into AI after a conversation with Altman two years ago.
The new technologies come at a time when Icon is taking steps to expand “very aggressively,” increasing construction from hundreds of homes per year to thousands per year. Ballard said there will likely be even more robots and innovations in the company’s future as it works to build homes “twice as good for half the price.”
“In the end, I think there will be AI systems and robots in the way we build from start to finish,” Ballard said, adding that people should only do what they want. “The houses we build without these tools look inhumane and sterile. I think these tools will actually help our homes feel more human.”
