One of my favorite sayings, as you'll know if you've been reading my work for any length of time, is that we solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology. That applies in so many areas it's not possible to list them all, but they include, most of all, energy, manufacturing, medicine, and now, housing.
Housing costs are a major problem across much of the fruited plain. Too much, and much of the cost is due to bad government: Excessive regulation, over-strict zoning, sky-high construction costs, all contribute.
Remember what I said about tomorrow's technologies? One fairly new technology, 3-D printing, may be about to make the construction costs, at least, a little more reasonable.
The best thinkers have been unable to solve California’s housing crisis, not because their ideas haven’t had merit, but due to policymakers’ resistance to reasonable reform. Technology, though, might soon override the obstructionists.
A recent study published by the University of California, Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation outlines “Potential Pathways to Scale Innovative Construction Methods in California.” Among the possibilities are building code reform, reducing “financial risk and liability to encourage industry growth” and boosting “long-term industry certainty by developing a strong workforce pipeline.”
But the one that’s most intriguing could replace the conventional timber-raising model: technology that prints homes on-site.
The best thinkers on California's housing crisis evidently haven't turned their considerable brain-pans towards reducing regulations, undoing insane zoning policies, and reducing taxes on home buyers and home builders. I know, I know - this is California, and reducing government interference just isn't on the table - for now.
But the technology? That may be on the way.
Three-dimensional home printing uses industrial-size printers that pour concrete on based on a digital blueprint. Other materials that can be used, says Parametric Architecture, include “polymers, sand, resins, and even sustainable alternatives like hempcrete, bio-resins, and wood composites.” Even sawmill waste can be converted to useful material.
Three-dimensional (3D) home printing is mentioned only four times in the Berkeley study’s 41 pages. It’s categorized as a subset of “industrialized construction,” which includes “a broad spectrum of practices that apply the ideas and methods from the manufacturing industry to housing design and construction.”
I won't make the obvious comment that a bunch of Berkeley scholars didn't really consider 3-D printing because it's something that may actually work.
Oh, wait. I just did.
3-D printing is one of those breakthrough technologies that is changing a lot. It is enabling small businesses to manufacture a variety of products, parts, and accessories in small, local shops. In time, we may be able to 3-D print replacement organs, custom-made orthopedics, and more.
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There are some challenges in applying this tech to housing that don't apply elsewhere, though. This process wouldn't be much like printing a kid's toy or some other small widget. This would require large amounts of material, and a big, industrial-scale printer, capable of handing everything from concrete to wood fiber. And the printed part of a house would only be the shell; the shell would still require more traditional methods for wiring, plumbing, roofing, gutters and so forth.
Still, this tech could greatly decrease the cost of a new structure. What's more, it presumably could be applied to larger structures, not only multi-family housing but also commercial structures, limited only by height - for now. But it's not hard to imagine a skyscraper built in 3-D printed sections, assembled by the traditional high-rise construction cranes.
The possibilities are legion. Depending on materials, it would seem that this technology could even be used to quickly raise temporary housing, in the event of natural disaster - or for getting homeless people off the streets so that the filth-strewn homeless enclaves in so many of our major cities can be cleaned up.
There's another benefit; these printed homes and buildings should appease the environmental lobby, who are one of the primary campaigners against traditional housing in California.
Printed homes should have the support of environmental activists, who are arguably the greatest obstacle to homebuilding in California. They cut waste and lower energy consumption. Those who fear carbon dioxide emissions will be happy to learn that a Texas company has produced “a carbon-neutral material that serves as a stronger alternative to traditional cement,” says 3DPrinting.com, an industry website, and “has the potential to reduce construction’s CO2 emissions by a staggering 93%.”
This is a new technology that seems to be flowering into more and possibly cheaper technologies with each new application.
There are other problems, as mentioned, in the most expensive housing markets in the country. 3-D printing may reduce the costs of the actual materials and construction, but it won't reduce the onerous regulations, they won't vote out interfering politicians, and it won't undo excessive zoning practices and policies.
We solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology. 3-D printing is a remarkable part of tomorrow's technology, a technology that is only starting today. The possibilities are legion - if we can get intrusive governments and clueless environmentalists out of the way.
