How do you print a house?

“With 3D printing, everything becomes digitized… [The] working drawing is input as a geometric code into a printer, and then it is executed,” stated Ahmed Mahil, the CEO of Luyten, the Melbourne-based company printing the house in Wyndham, to SBS News.

According to the builder, the entire process of building “80 per cent of the house” in Wyndham took approximately three weeks.

Ahmed Mahil says printing this 3D house cost 30 per cent less than a traditional construction. Credit: Supplied

A solution to the housing crisis?

The report said 177,000 new homes were finished in 2024, a big gap from the estimated underlying demand of 223,000 for the same period.

“We’re talking about increasing the efficiency and the productivity … A traditional builder does 10 houses a year. We can up that to 50 houses.”

A more sustainable option?

Mahil asserts that his 3D-printed house was 30 per cent cheaper than a traditional build. Nonetheless, there has been no formal Australian research into the cost difference.

‘Industry shock’ on human labour

According to 2023 research by academics at Charles Darwin and Monash universities, the 3D technologies will “reduce opportunities for many people working onsite”, which “may cause political instability in particular economies”.

“When they have better tools like the robots, 3D printers — and incentives to use those — that will help them do what they can do best, which is build more houses,” he said.