3D-printed home to rise on Richmond’s Southside in pilot project
By Noah Daboul, June 23, 2021, Richmond, VA
Armed with a grant from a state housing agency, a group that includes a team from Virginia Tech, a Richmond construction company and two local nonprofits are trying out a new way to build and sell a home.
The venture is taking shape on a vacant Southside parcel at 217 Carnation St., where the end result will be a nearly 1,600-square-foot residence, the exterior bones of which will be made by a 3D printer. The group says it will be first home of its kind for sale in Virginia.
The project is made possible by Virginia Housing (formerly Virginia Housing Development Authority), which announced a $500,000 grant to help secure the specialized device, which prints with concrete. It’s one of only two in the U.S., the other being in Florida.
The grant was awarded to Virginia Tech’s Virginia Center for Housing Research.
Chris Thompson, director of strategic housing at Virginia Housing, said the agency was first introduced to 3D printing at a conference a few years ago and they became interested in finding ways to use the technology.
The agency later created an innovation grant program that would help them look for partners with cutting edge ideas that would aid in construction. That’s how the connections were made to get the Richmond project going.