3D Home Construction and InovaHouse3D have partnered up to build Brazils first 3D printed house in early July 2020. At 66sqm or 710 sqft it has 2 bedrooms and is currently being tested for its viability.
My name is Jarett Gross, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Juliana Martinelli, founder of InovaHouse 3D and Andre Dantas, founder of 3D Home Construction. You can listen to the whole 100 minute conversation at the link above.
Printing the first house in Brazil was no easy feat but this team was able to achieve that lofty goal spending only $35,000 of their own money to develop the printer and print the house. This is a bootstrapped, grassroots startup driven by ambition and a dream.
The original printer developed by InovaHouse3D was given the friendly nickname ‘frankenstin’ because of the ‘use what you have’ nature of their project. With McGyver like resourcefulness they managed to demonstrate the viability of printed concrete on their custom machine.
Frankenstein helped push many of the early innovations and learning experiences for InovaHouse3D. Through their learning process they decided to build walls that are not connected by an interior support structure and don’t even use rebar.
The local municipalities often deal with many non-compliant construction projects done by the Brazilian citizens so maybe that is why they are willing to work with this company. InovaHouse3D is keeping the municipalities involved every step of the way. Fortunately, there is a precedent set there for concrete forms without rebar and by adhering to those standards the process is more simple than other countries with more strict building codes.
InovaHouse was built on the dream of affordable housing for the masses. This is a Brazilian company that is looking to make an impact in their home country and help their people improve living standards.
Now this company is raising money to print many more houses in a new location. The details of their next project have yet to be revealed but we can hope for as many as 10 houses on the next construction site near Brasilia, Brazil. The newest project will require around $250,000 in capital, interested investors should understand this is a long term investment in a new technology with a large reward potential when this tech becomes proven enough to be mainstream.