A prototype of Phoenix, Icon’s next-generation robot, builds a two-story structure in Austin. — Bloomberg
SAN FRANCISCO: Giant robots made by Austin startup Icon began 3D-printing an entire neighbourhood of suburban homes in late 2022.
On Tuesday, the company introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) architect to design them. It’s a technological leap that Icon says could one day spell the demise of cookie-cutter suburbia, ushering in an era of lower cost, lower carbon and climate-resilient homes in wildly novel forms.
That’s the promise, at least, of a suite of new technologies Icon previewed for Bloomberg Green as its machines finish construction on the world’s largest 3D-printed neighbourhood, a 100-house Austin subdivision at Wolf Ranch for home giant Lennar Corp.
The innovations, formally introduced at SXSW, range from the AI architect to low-carbon concrete and a new robot that can 3D-print two-story buildings, roofs and foundations included.
“There’s no reason to build ugly-ass spec homes anymore,” Icon founder and chief executive officer Jason Ballard said at the company’s headquarters near downtown Austin (while wearing his customary white cowboy hat).
“We don’t just need to make housing more affordable – it actually also needs to get better.”
Icon has spent 18 months developing its AI programme – named Vitruvius after an ancient Roman architect – which uses a chatbot to converse with would-be homeowners about their dream projects.
After the user responds to a series of prompts, Vitruvius offers several versions of a house, complete with exterior and interior renderings and floor plans.
“It has an intuitive awareness of both the laws of physics and a bit of building code and building possibility,” Ballard says.
When he asked Vitruvius to design a 3D-printed treehouse, for instance, it included a support column as it knew a tree alone couldn’t bear the weight.
For now, humans are still needed to turn Vitruvius’s plans into buildable reality.
By year’s end, the programme will be able to produce its own construction schematics, according to Ballard.
He says Vitruvius is at least a year away from being able to draw up full construction documents, permit applications, budgets, bills of materials and a building schedule – an ambitious timeline for an untested technology tacking a complex interplay of tasks.
But if the processes can be automated, Icon estimates the software could shave at least US$100,000 from the price of a home.
Getting there, though, will necessitate acquiring untold quantities of data and training the programme on a plethora of factors, including building codes, the geography of construction sites and perhaps even the peculiarities of homeowner association rules.
Icon is counting on thousands of Vitruvius users to help refine the system (free for now) once it launches.
Judging by the requests of about 100 beta testers, the AI will have plenty to work with: Design asks so far include everything from Barbie dream homes to Hobbit hideaways.
“Let’s play. What do you want?” Ballard said as he launched Vitruvius on a conference room screen and a chat window pops up. “I’m here to help you design a home,” it says. It’s something few prospective homeowners ever hear. Unless you have the budget to hire an architect, options dwindle to mass-produced models offered by suburban developers or what’s been built before.
Vitruvius showed a 1,500-sq-ft, three-bedroom, two-bath home. It was a contemporary style with expanses of glass. Location: the beach town of Bolinas in Marin County, California.
“Sounds like you’re envisioning a contemporary one-story home with an open feel,” Vitruvius responds.
“Before we proceed with the design, can you tell me more about your lifestyle and how you envision using the space in your home?”
The AI was told that two people and a dog would live in the house and that the buyer wanted a seamless flow between home and nature, plus a work space.
“Considering your location in Bolinas and desire to integrate with nature, would you like the design to include specific outdoor features such as a deck patio or garden areas?” it asks.
Within seconds, Vitruvius displays a collection of stunning homes and floor plans in a setting that resembles coastal California.
The homes include conventional construction as well as a 3D-printed model that takes advantage of the technology’s ability to create undulating walls that blend into the landscape.
3D-printed version
Vitruvius always includes at least one 3D-printed version of a home, which Ballard says would-be homeowners seem to favour.
Developers typically tamp down generative AI programmes’ tendency to “hallucinate,” or provide information that’s untethered from reality.
Icon initially did the same until, “We realised when you turn hallucination to zero, you get the most offensive version of cookie-cutter developments,” Ballard says.
“You actually need a little bit of hallucination to get 3D-printed tree houses.” The key is balancing creativity against what can practically be built.
“You can’t hallucinate construction budgets,” he quipped.
Ballard credits the inspiration for Icon’s AI architect to a chance encounter with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a conference two years ago, before the release of ChatGPT triggered an AI gold rush.
Ballard told Altman about his idea for architecture software that might eventually add AI.
“He said, ‘Your timeline is wrong. You should start building it as an AI system right now,’ and gave me some tips and pointers,” says Ballard, who sent a beta of Vitruvius to Altman.
Maria Paz Gutierrez, an associate professor of architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, says 3D printing “in principle can offer unique advantages to address affordable housing prices issues because it can substantially decrease building time and potentially material usage.”
“In a general sense, AI is bound to change the way in which not only we design, but how we build, and ultimately how we live our day-to-day lives in spaces,” she says.
Onerous design duties
So is architect the next human job under existential threat from AI? Ballard says Vitruvius will relieve architects of onerous design duties like drafting construction documents.
Icon is also offering architects an opportunity to profit from its 3D-printing tech if they submit plans to the company’s new catalogue of ready-to-print home designs, CodeX.
“Every time we build one of your designs, we will send you a cheque so that people have access to good architecture again without paying US$30,000, US$60,000, US$100,000 or US$200,000,” Ballard says.
Icon’s CodeX programme will pay architects 1% of the construction costs for any home built using their blueprints, and will help them design for 3D printing. — Bloomberg
