Brief
According to innovative housing startup Mighty Buildings CTO Dmitry Starodubtsev, the answer is to reinvent construction with a mix of pre-fabrication, 3D printing, automation, plus a heft dose of ZNE, or Zero Net Energy: homes that generate all the power they need to consume.
Insight
The world needs two billion new homes in the next 80 years, the World Economic Forum said in 2018. The United States needs 3.8 million additional new homes just to meet existing consumer demand, Realtor.com estimated in 2020. And yet, with perhaps 600,000 people homeless in the U.S. and 40 million people living in poverty in the richest country on Earth, it isn’t just about quantity.
It’s also about price.
And, price to the planet. Construction is already the source of 40% of our carbon footprint globally. How do we house people effectively, efficiently, cost-effectively, and in a planet-friendly way?
According to innovative housing startup Mighty Buildings CTO Dmitry Starodubtsev, the answer is to reinvent construction with a mix of pre-fabrication, 3D printing, automation, plus a heft dose of ZNE, or Zero Net Energy: homes that generate all the power they need to consume.
“We’re trying to automate the construction process, increase quality, and increase factory throughput in order basically to unlock productivity in the regions with high housing demand,” Starodubtsev told me on a recent TechFirst podcast. “The entire system works to eliminate as much labor hours on site as possible in order to reduce pricing and make it more affordable for different generations of people, not only millennials.
Essentially: 3D print custom components, mass-produce standard building blocks, design holistically, and automate as much as possible. All 3D printing can actually be slower for large components, while all pre-fab limits creativity and customization.
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