ICON has unveiled a completed 3D printed home in Austin, Texas designed by Lake|Flato. Named “House Zero,” the home adopts a “mid-century modernist ranch house aesthetic” while also exploring how 3D printing can enhance resilience and sustainability.

The project comprises of a main three-bedroom home spanning over 2000 square feet, and a one-bedroom accessory dwelling unit spanning 350 square feet. The walls of the home were constructed using “Lavacrete,” a 3D printed cement-based material, with combines with insulation and steel reinforcement to form the external envelope. The team believes that the thermal mass properties of Lavacrete will enhance energy efficiency by slowing heat transfer, increasing insulation, and providing a more airtight envelope.

The curved 3D printed walls also serve as a strong design feature throughout the home, with rounded corners creating soft, natural circulation routes through the home. “While the organic nature of the 3D-printed concrete and curved walls are new design languages for us, House Zero was still entirely in line with the natural connections we seek in our architecture,” said Ashley Heeren, Associate at Lake|Flato.

Doorways and windows were strategically placed to accentuate accompanying landscapes, including eastern-facing high clerestory windows illuminate the living room. Meanwhile, an external timber accent to the roof structure continues to the interior, where smooth timber ceilings and partition walls create a contrast from the curving 3D printed concrete.

“Houses like this are only possible with 3D printing, and this is the new standard of what 3D printing can mean for the world, added Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of ICON. “My hope is that this home will provoke architects, developers, builders, and homeowners to dream alongside ICON about the exciting and hopeful future that robotic construction, and specifically 3D printing, makes possible.”

The home will be open to the public during SXSW on March 13th and 14th.

News of the scheme comes one week after we featured plans in Ridgecrest, California for a series of 3D printed homes using recycled plastic. In Virginia, meanwhile, Habitat for Humanity has recently announced the completion of its first 3D printed home in the United States. Habitat’s 3D printed housing project in Tempe, Arizona was also the subject of a recent Archinect feature which took a deep-dive into the process of designing and constructing a 3D printed house.