A Japanese company has 3D printed a 530-square-foot concrete tiny home for the price of a car — see how it was built

There Serendix 50 was built over 44 hours and has has a bedroom, bathroom, and living room with a kitchen.

serendix

• A Japanese company has constructed a prototype 3D-printed tiny home for about $37,300.
• The 527-square-foot unit has one bedroom, bathroom, and living room with a kitchen.
• Proponents of the construction tech say printers can cut the time, materials, labor, and cost needed to build a home.

Purchasing a home is the biggest expense most Americans will ever pay in their lives. But in Japan, a startup has brought the cost of a new home down to that of a new car.

The catch? It's 3D-printed. And it's not exactly the mansion most Americans dream of.

The burgeoning 3D printing construction tech is quickly making its way across the real estate and home construction industry in the US. In Texas, sales in the upcoming largest neighborhood of 3D-printed homes have already started at $476,000. And on the East Coast, the University of Maine has figured out how to 3D-print a fully recyclable tiny home using wood waste.

Overseas, progress on printed homes seems to be chugging along as well.

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Serendix is Japan's first 3D-printing home manufacturer, Kaito Ogata, the company's CTO, told Insider in an email.

Its first uniquely globular building, pictured below, was printed in March 2202.

Clouds AO / serendix

The 107-square-foot "Sphere" was constructed in under 24 hours, according to the company.

About a year later, it unveiled its next build: the Serendix 50.

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The cute dwelling was constructed in late July over 44 hours, the company's CTO said. It was nicknamed "Fujitsubo," which translates to "barnacle."

Fujitsubo was designed to accommodate a couple.

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Inside, the single-story 527-square-foot home has one bedroom, bathroom, and living room with a kitchen.

Like most homes built using the tech, the walls were 3D-printed.

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The wood roof was then built using a CNC (computer numerical control) cutter. Because almost all of the primary components of the home were built using automated tech, the startup was able to save both time and money.

To print the walls, Serendix turned to Winsun and Twente Additive Manufacturing's printers, Ogata said.

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And to further slash construction costs, the Japanese company printed the home using a cement mix with an additive to help it harden quickly. The majority of 3D-printed homes are currently being built using some form of a concrete concoction. 

These printed components were completed inside of a factory next to the construction site.

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They were then moved and connected to the home's steel columns and foundation using a truck and crane, similar to connecting Lego pieces together. However, the company had to reprint some walls after they were broken in this moving process. 

And it seems all of these money saving methods worked. Ogata compared the cost to build this tiny home to that of a new car — 5.5 million yen, or about $37,300.

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California-based Azure Printed homes — which uses recycled plastic to 3D print homes — charges about $125,900 for an accessory dwelling unit of a comparable size. 

This lower price tag is a contrast to the increasing cost of housing in Japan, which Ogata calls a "serious problem." "Japanese people get angry [about the] housing industry."

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And stateside, it's the primary reason more startups and legacy home builders have started turning to this 3D printing homebuilding technology. Proponents of the tech say the more it becomes prevalent, the more it can help cut the time, materials, labor, and cost needed to construct a home.

But nobody has moved into this home. It's just a prototype located in a city about four hours outside of Tokyo: Komaki, Japan in the Aichi Prefecture.

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But this could soon change. At the end of October, the company will begin fulfilling an order for six of these units, Ogata said.

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