I could never live in a tiny house. Just the thought of it makes me sweat. Still, it’s the big thing right now for millennials who value experience over acquisitions and boomers who have burnt out and want to get away from it all. Admittedly, it’s also a great solution for people who need low income housing, all over the world. A big part of the problem, however comes into play when you try to buy or build one. It can get pretty expensive, and it’s not like they just pop up over night… or can they?
Apis Cor, a San Francisco-based 3D-printing took on the idea of tiny house living as an engineering challenge and what they’ve come up with is a printable, 400-square-foot tiny home, that prints out in just 24 hours. The total cost of the home, including new Samsung appliances, comes to just over $10,000.
One of the hopes of the project is to help bolster a sluggish construction industry while also helping provide everyone a home. That said, they also say the concrete homes will last up to 175 years, so it might help with construction now, but hurt in the long run.
Apis printed their test home in Russia, just around 60 miles south of Moscow. The harsh Russian winter wasn’t even an obstacle, as the printer can work in up to -31 degrees Fahrenheit. To keep the wet concrete from freezing before it was printed, they just put up a tent to help insulate the mixture.