3D-printed Homes to Make up a Fourplex in Ontario

Brief 

Habitat for Humanity plans to build the first 3D-printed concrete homes in Canada. The 500-square-foot tiny homes will make up a fourplex in Leamington, Ontario.

Insight

Habitat for Humanity Windsor-Essex (HHWE) is preparing to build Canada’s first-ever 3D printed residential project which will have four self-contained tiny homes each measuring 500 square feet in one structure.

The groundbreaking build is being done in Leamington, Ont., in partnership with the University of Windsor and Invest WindsorEssex (IWE) which created virtual reality modelling to assist with the planning process.

IWE believes the emerging technology of 3D printing might be a game-changing solution to the housing crisis by increasing efficiency, promoting density and cutting costs associated with construction.

“The purpose of this project is to advance our understanding of emerging building technologies that, over time, could increase the efficiency of delivering affordable housing solutions quickly and more affordably,” explains HHWE CEO Fiona Coughlin. “Habitat WE will benefit from the learning here, and those learnings could have a far-reaching impact for Habitat, and for the construction industry more broadly.”

The units will make up a four-plex and be accessible, net-zero ready and comply with local planning and building regulations.They are being built as part of a larger development owned by the Bridge Youth Resource Centre. Upon completion, they will be transferred to the centre and rented to those in need of housing.

The IWE team, led by digital twin technician Bryan Holmes, took a computer-assisted design (CAD) model of the project and, using leading-edge hardware and software, brought the home to life in a Virtual Reality (VR) Cave.

The process identified how the design would ultimately look and allowed builders to conduct a virtual audit on the individual homes to ensure they are fully accessible prior to construction.

Holmes says the CAD drawings were loaded into Unity, a platform that is primarily used to develop video games and simulations for computers, consoles and mobile devices. From there, a virtual version of the project was created to determine if there were any accessibility problems with the design.