About three years ago, architectural 3D printing startup Icon unveiled a luxury showcase home dubbed “House Zero.”
Designed by Lake | Flato, a Texas studio lauded for its sustainable, site-sensitive approach, the more-than-2,000-square-foot home spread along a single story, its walls curving and gray. They were 3D printed, each textured layer extruded by one of Icon’s Vulcan printers.
For Icon, the bespoke residence served as proof of where high-design and high-tech intersect and of how 3D printing can shave down construction time and waste. Shortly after its completion, House Zero was named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of 2022 for its design.
Now, House Zero is on the market, listed at 1700 Riverview St. in Austin’s East Cesar Chavez neighborhood for $2.2 million.
After holding onto the home for a couple of years — using it for tours that underscored the company’s robotic construction abilities — they’re choosing to sell the residence to make room for new innovations, said Brooke Bauguess, Icon's senior vice president of marketing and communications.
“We are launching a new, multistory printer called ‘Titan’ next year, and we will be starting to build projects with Titan,” Bauguess said. “We’re ready to part ways with House Zero.”
Compass agent Amanda Trevino, the listing agent for House Zero, said she loves walking people through the home, and often wishes she could capture the pure excitement and curiosity of interested buyers.
“Beyond how incredibly beautiful that home is, some of the surprising things about it to me are how warm and comfortable it feels and then how quiet it is inside,” Trevino explained.
House Zero’s curving walls are made from Icon’s “Lavacrete,” a cement-like material extruded by the 3D printer. Despite the novel material, the home has a decidedly midcentury modern-inflected aesthetic, helped along by the single-story layout and a certain biophilia that comes from all those undulating walls. Those ridged walls are also steel-reinforced and airtight, making them pretty good insulators and amping up the home’s energy efficiency.
In addition to the main three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house, House Zero is decked out in carefully selected finishes and Douglas fir millwork, and it comes with a 350-square-foot accessory dwelling unit, equipped with one bedroom and one bathroom.
As she’s toured people through the home in its roughly two weeks on the market, Trevino said she's yet to receive negative feedback.
“We’re dealing with the same things that anyone would on a listing,” she said. “Is it the right time for them to buy? Is it the exact right floor plan for them?”
3D-printed community offers different prices, sizes
House Zero isn’t the only 3D-printed home Trevino has on the market right now. The agent is also listing a dozen 3D printed Icon homes designed by Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, another award-winning Texas firm.
Announced earlier this year and developed by Catellus, these residences in Austin’s Mueller community offer a wider breadth of floorplan, size (ranging from a compact 650 square feet to an expansive 2,400 square feet) and price (from the mid-$300,000 to north of $1 million), an alternative to the luxurious House Zero. Three of the Mueller homes are to be priced under $200,000 for the Mueller Affordable Program, Trevino said.
The Mueller homes also look distinct from House Zero: They have some familiar extruded walls, but they also feature a funky basket weave pattern.
Trevino started preselling the two-story homes earlier this year, marking Icon’s first Austin home sales since 2021. So far, she’s sold nine of the 12 and has a two-bedroom option listed at 3600 Tom Miller St. Unit 2 for $980,609.
The agent estimated she’s sold about half of the under-construction Mueller residences, with buyers ranging from first-time shoppers to individuals buying their third home in the same neighborhood.
“We have people very excited about the neighborhoods,” Trevino explained.
But buyers — and this applies to House Zero, too — are also excited about the resiliency of these 3D-printed homes. The Austin buyer pool is savvy, Trevino said, explaining that they’re looking at how expensive insurance is getting and treading carefully when they consider investing in a home.
“We talk a lot about the energy efficiency, and you can feel it when you go into those homes,” the agent said. “But the fire resistance, the mold resistance, the termite resistance … when you talk about people being excited about a different form of construction, that is a really motivating factor for a lot of buyers who want a really well-built home that’s going to stand the test of time.”