• Icon asked students and architecture pros to design 3D printed homes that could be built for $99,000 or less.
• The six winning concepts are now featured in Icon’s digital catalog of 3D printed home designs.
• Developers would be able to “order” the catalog’s homes.

Using a robot 3D printer to construct a home doesn’t have to be as unattainable as it might sound.

Quite the opposite: According to construction-tech startup Icon, the cost to build a 3D printed home could be less than the price of a luxury car.

In 2023, the Austin-based startup launched its Initiative 99 competition, inviting students and professional architects to design homes that could be built for $99,000 or less “without sacrificing beauty, dignity, comfort, sustainability, or resiliency.”

The prize? Money — and the opportunity to have their concept featured in Icon’s Codex, a digital catalog of printed home designs that real estate developers could peruse and ask Icon to build.