Striking the Right Balance
by Carole VanSickle Ellis
Justin Fordham, CEO of Fordham Enterprises, believes firmly in that now-famous axiom: “If you build it, they will come.” Unlike Kevin Costner in his classic baseball movie, however, Fordham is not building ballparks in corn fields.
Instead, he is involved in supporting the research, development, and building of a new element of industry in the real estate space: 3D construction printing (3DCP) and the associated technologies needed to erect what his company, Fordham Enterprises, calls “the next generation of residential and commercial properties.” Fordham is confident that if he can find a way to make the technology available to those who build in the industry, they will come.
Fordham Enterprises is involved in every element of the 3DCP process for residential and commercial buildings, in large part because Fordham, himself, has a background in finance.
“I started out in the finance world,” he explained, adding, “I wanted to simplify the financing process and add it to the building aspect of these 3D-printed properties so we could streamline the entire development process and hopefully have properties built and ready for rental or sale in months instead of the process taking a year or more.”
Fordham believes new 3D printing processes are the answer to housing shortages in many markets because the process, when also financed efficiently, can dramatically reduce the time it takes a builder to get new housing approved and available on the market.
“We are living in a time when we have the most advanced construction technology in human history.” Fordham continued, “We can match the quality of existing materials and raise the quality of life for so many people while keeping prices affordable even though other costs are going up all around us.”
Fordham knew he wanted to be involved in the burgeoning 3DCP industry several years ago but also could see there would be a stumbling block for most developers wishing to use the technology in their communities. Because this technology is new and still evolving, the printers themselves often must be built to spec for individual projects, although once they are assembled, they can be used for multiple developments moving forward.
Additionally, the aggregate, which includes the concrete mixture that may be compared to ink in a traditional printer, must be specially formulated for the architectural design and environmental elements that will affect the structures. Fordham hopes to open “the first streamlined 3D printing facility where we can build, utilize locally sourced materials, and supply a new workforce,” he explained.
It’s All About the “Ink”
Islam Mantawy, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Additive and Robotic Construction Laboratory (ARC-LAB) at Rowan University in New Jersey, collaborates with Fordham to create the ideal concrete mixtures for different types of structures.
“Every mix has a different composition, which means it may have different types of cement, different industry byproducts like silica fume (a byproduct of the silicon industry) and slag, and different amounts of these materials and others,” explained Mantawy. The idea, he continued, is to create the strongest and most resilient structure possible for a given location while also making use of the products at hand in the area.
“If you think of these concrete mixes as three-dimensional ink, then we want to have the option to use the ‘green ink’ if the ‘red’ runs out,” he said. At present, Rowan University has about a dozen different mix options available and designs for printers capable of extruding them.
This wide variety of mix options make 3DCP “an architects dream,” Fordham explained. Not only are 3D homes often easier to take through the zoning and code approval process because, once approved, the machines can replicate the approved pattern exactly time and time again, but they also allow a vast amount of architectural creativity. The latter, Fordham said, is extremely important particularly for high-end homeowners, who have not traditionally embraced 3D printed homes because of a perceived lack of design flexibility.
“If you are going to spend half a million dollars (or more) on a home, you do not want your house to look the same as every other house in the neighborhood,” Fordham explained. “With new 3D printing technology, however, we can build things that did not even exist in the past,” he continued. Fordham explained design elements in this type of home can range from the relatively simple, like trim and wall designs, to far more complex, including columns and other innovative structures previously unseen in residential homes.
“People want their home to be something they can identify with,” he explained. “With this technology, architects can get really creative and the structures in a community can be unique.”
Fordham noted in addition to these market advantages, the process has the capability of increasing inventory in some markets almost twofold “while keeping costs down or even on parity.” This speed is due partly to the efficiency of the printing process and partly to the expedition of funding for this type of project. Because the details do not necessarily change much from one project to the next and the projects can be completed more quickly, lenders may be willing to lend in higher volumes or with quicker turnarounds, he said. Since lenders also must factor in the cost of safeguarding the collateral, he added, 3D printed buildings are often easier to finance because they are less likely to sustain water or fire damage.
“What we are doing is mitigating the types of damages associated with homeowners as they relate to weather,” Mantawy said. “This means that you are likely to make fewer major repairs to the home over time.”
He also noted in every case, designs and mixes are “optimized by design and by materials” before undergoing “rigorous testing to verify the capability and load-carrying capacity.” This customizes the structures to the local environment, so that properties in wildfire-risk areas are resistant to heats associated specifically with these types of fires as well as more common housefires and homes located in areas prone to earthquakes or flooding are resistant to these environmental disasters.
Fordham added, “This decreases the burden of homeownership for the eventual homeowner and the risk for the lender on the project. This type of construction keeps risk to a minimum.”
In addition to designing an array of useful mixes for 3D printed buildings, Fordham and Mantawy have found a niche in providing access to the machinery and associated infrastructure for each mix. “Depending on the ability of the pump and the nozzle to smoothly extrude the material, you will need different types of equipment and pumping systems,” Mantawy said.
“This is why we have a machine component to the business as well,” Fordham explained, noting there is high demand for skilled operators for this cutting-edge machinery.
“Our goal is to build, utilizing our own materials, provide access to others, and also supply a new workforce to support this new real estate space,” he concluded. “We need people to work alongside our machines because the human touch is still a very important part of construction. We believe by training workers to monitor and support the process alongside the machines, we can make the entire building process much easier on everyone involved.”
The Challenge of Scale
When it comes to 3D printing, the type of mixes including aggregates used in construction drives the design of the machine doing the printing. Historically, this has meant that printers would be custom-designed, making the process time-consuming and expensive. However, Mantawy said, his lab is working on nozzle designs that can accommodate different “sizes” of aggregate without clogging.
The size of the aggregate correlates to how finely ground pieces of materials mixed into the aggregate are. For example, “fine aggregate,” which includes extremely small-grained, powdery sand, may clog some nozzles, and larger aggregate, such as the types often used for repairing pavement, is more likely to clog a nozzle simply because the pieces in the mix are larger. In the past, fine aggregates have outperformed large aggregates in durability and strength, but they also drive the cost of production up. Mantawy said his lab has come up with some unique combinations that offer the benefits of both sizes.
“That is how we scale [this process] up so we can serve build-to-rent communities and other projects that will benefit from building inventory in a quicker way,” Fordham said. He noted developers currently must factor in a window between 12 and 24 months to get approvals on projects before beginning, and then may need as much time again to complete the community. “We can cut that time down in half and bring in homes much more quickly than has been traditional,” he said.
Fordham concluded, “When you also factor in the ways that this process complements raising and deploying capital, it is easy to see how we can invest in positive ways in the community.” He said he expects “a lot of public-private partnerships to take place” in the coming months as the cost of capital comes down and more markets are able to tackle the problem of housing affordability.
“We expect to permeate the multifamily and single-family markets with this technology,” he said, noting that commercial uses for this type of 3D printing include data centers, which need to be erected quickly. With the ability to print one house roughly every 35 days once the foundation is poured, Fordham said the company is positioned to make a significant, positive difference for both single- and multi-family inventories around the country.
“You have lots of people talking about affordability right now, and a large part of the cost of a home is how it is built,” Fordham said. He continued, “If we are able to cut costs in certain ways and then pass that off to buyers, we will be able to build slightly cheaper, sell at a lower price point, and increase local inventory. If you can bring homes to market faster, that definitely brings down the price in the inventory, and, at the same time, we create an engine in the region where these homes are being built to attract small businesses, grow the workforce, and work side-by-side with others in the industry.”
SIDEBAR 1
A Basic Overview of 3D Printing in Real Estate
3DCP works much like other types of 3D printing that you may have seen in the past, but on a much larger scale. This larger scale affects the materials that a builder can use and the design of the buildings. You may have watched a handyman print out a custom part for a tool or seen those attractive, jointed toys for sale at local craft fairs. The same process for printing these little things is used to print much bigger things, like houses and commercial buildings, but, while the little things are relatively simple, the larger items require a substantial amount of research and careful consideration before the printing process begins.
In order to print a 3D home, an architect must first create a 3D model that is “sliced” into horizonal layers using a special piece of software. This helps the printer’s “brain” visualize how the layers of aggregate will be extruded (pushed out) of the nozzle. The mix is a lot like concrete; it makes up the walls and many structural components of the home, including possible furniture and landscaping. Once the design is reviewed and appears functional after slicing, the 3D printer is installed onsite, and workers pour a foundation for the structure. Then, the printer is loaded with the best mix and aggregates for the location of the structure (fire retardant, seismic resistant, tornado resistant), and the printer gets to work. It extrudes multiple horizontal layers of the buildings, following preprogrammed instructions that allow room for insulation and leave holes for wiring. The aggregate is designed to cure quickly, and customized formulas allow engineers to account for both warm and cold weather conditions as well as particularly arid or humid climates.
In some cases, Justin Fordham, CEO of Fordham Enterprises, said, the company even opts to print large portions of buildings off-site. “This allows us to build in a controlled environment,” he explained. “In cases like these, we can build faster and we do not have to worry about the weather or climate.” Once the piece is completed, it is shipped to the building site. The company hopes to create “anchor sites” for this facet of the 3D printing process in order to more easily supply different regions of the country.
SIDEBAR 2
A Breakdown of ARC-LAB and Fordham Enterprises Partnership & 3D Construction Printing
3D Construction Printing (3DCP) has many uses. ARC-LAB and Fordham Enterprises use proprietary ARC-LAB mixes for:
» Residential homes
» Shelters
» Commercial sites
» Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
» Walls and fences
» Sheds
» Retainer block walls
» Drainage
» Infrastructure, including bridges, barriers, curbs, sound barriers, and retaining walls
» Coastal infrastructure, including artificial reefs and seawalls
The ARC-LAB printers have the capability to print underwater and on slopes exceeding 45 degrees and up to 60 degrees in some cases from the vertical plane. “Our materials have superior stability and performance,” Mantawy said. “In our laboratory settings, we are using these materials to develop unique structures optimized to be lightweight by both design and materials.” He noted that in lab settings, once experimental structures are completed, they are demolished and reclaimed for multiple uses.
Mantawy has also experimented with adding reinforcing materials to printed projects, such as cables and steel reinforcement. “I had never seen that before,” Fordham said. “It was mind-boggling. These prints are extremely streamlined, and Rowan University’s ARC-LAB is at the forefront of what a 3d printed structure should look like as it relates to the quality of the finished product.”
Learn more about 3DCP and Fordham Enterprises at Fordham-Enterprises.com and ARCLABru.com.
