How an 11-foot-tall 3D printer is helping to create a community – Baltimore Sun Pedro García Hernández, 48, is a carpenter in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, a rainforest-shrouded region of the country where about half of the residents live below the poverty line. What’s most unusual about the home is that it was made with an 11-foot-tall 3D printer. Two years and a pandemic later, 200 homes are either under construction or have been completed, 10 of which were printed on site by Icon’s Vulcan II printer. In March, Palari Homes and construction company Mighty Buildings announced a $15 million planned community of more than a dozen 3D-printed homes in Rancho Mirage, California. Icon has also printed homes in the Community First Village in Austin, a project of the nonprofit organization Mobile Loaves & Fishes that provides permanent housing to homeless men and women. In Nacajuca, building a home with Icon’s Vulcan II printer looks much like a massive soft serve ice cream cone: Layers of lavacrete, the company’s proprietary concrete mix, are poured one after another in long swirls. The printer is controlled by a tablet or smartphone, requires as few as three workers and can complete a home in less than 24 hours.

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