Close to two years ago, Lennar, ICON, and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) announced they were going to design and build the largest U.S. community of 3D-printed homes to date. Today, the Genesis Collection at Wolf Ranch has made significant strides to accomplish its goal.
The community's first fully furnished model home is now open for scheduled tours and Lennar has sold several homes already, with the first homeowners targeted to move in this fall.
"We are very pleased to partner with ICON and BIG in building a first-of-its-kind, printed-home community that combines innovative designs with sustainable features at an affordable price," said Stuart Miller, executive chairman of Lennar, in a prior announcement. "Given the housing shortage that persists across the country, it has never been more important to innovate in order to find new methods of construction that will enable greater design flexibility and greater production at affordable prices."
Located alongside the San Gabriel River in the hills of Georgetown, Texas, the Wolf Ranch development by Hillwood Communities, a Perot company, blends the Texas hill country with access to the entire Austin metro area.
Built by Lennar and ICON and co-designed by BIG, the innovative, 100-home community features eight floor plans, 24 elevations, and homes ranging from 1,500 to 2,100 square feet with three to four bedrooms. Pricing currently ranges from $475,000 to $599,000.
Unlike traditionally built homes, the Genesis Collection at Wolf Ranch is built using advanced materials, engineering, and 3D robotics, making each of the structures strong, resilient, and energy-efficient, states ICON.
With precise robotic construction, the wall systems are delivered with accuracy and reduced waste and are designed to be resistant to water, mold, termites, and fire damage. In structural tests, ICON reports the wall system exceeded strength requirements by more than 350%.
Each home is then topped with a standing seam metal roof, designed to be durable, energy-efficient, fire-resistant, and equipped with all-weather photovoltaic solar panels.
"For the first time in the history of the world, what we're witnessing here is a fleet of robots building an entire community of homes,” said Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO at ICON, when they started construction on the homes. “And not just any homes, homes that are better in every way … better design, higher strength, higher energy performance and comfort, and increased resiliency.”
Virtually tour the entire neighborhood and get on the wait list for a one-of-a-kind home on ICON's newly launched platform at https://homes.iconbuild.com/wolf-ranch/explore/.