Episode Transcript

Zannat Reza (0:00:00):
Welcome to the Future Age podcast. Brought to you by the future of aging team at SEHealth. I'm your host, Zannat Reza. In this series, we explore creative solutions to reimagine what life could look like as we get older. In this episode, we discuss the potential of 3D printed housing to address the housing crisis, particularly for older adults in need of affordable, age-friendly options.

Zannat Reza (0:03:02):
We explore the potential of 3D printing technology in creating age-friendly homes, discussing how it can be used to build wide hallways and accessible doorways, as well as mount equipment for aging in place. I spoke to Ian Arthur, president of NIDA's 3D, a construction company in Kingston, Ontario that specializes in building houses using 3D printing technology. We talked about how they're built, its benefits to an aging population, and also in dealing with climate change, and how can we accelerate the process to build more houses faster. Here's some of our conversation.

Zannat Reza: (0:05:02)
I spoke to Ian Arthur, president of Nida's 3D, a construction company in Kingston, Ontario that specializes in building houses using 3D printing technology.

Ian Arthur: (0:05:14)
In relation to aging, a very good project for us would be a lot of single-story buildings fairly close together as a campus style because we can move very rapidly and get to a place where we're able to probably build one to two units a week.

Ian Arthur (0:05:38):
In relation to aging, a very good project for us would be a lot of single story buildings fairly close together as a campus style because we can move very rapidly and get to a place where we're able to probably build one to two units a week. Nascent or units per week on a site like that. And how larger these units? Honestly, any size you want, right now our limit is the 40 by 40 for principal area, but so, you know, 1,200 square foot bungalow.

Zannat Reza (0:06:18):
Have there been other conversations that you've had on age-friendly housing?

Ian Arthur (0:06:22):
One of our first investors is building these four-plex units that all have their own ground level entranceway single story, two bedroom specifically for the aging population. His design is a little bit bigger than the printable area that we're able to secure in, but that approach is something that we're very well geared to do.

Zannat Reza (0:06:44):
How do you build a house using a 3D printer?

Ian Arthur (0:06:47):
Start with the picture in your mind. I think most of us or many of us at this point have seen a little 3D printer. We've seen them in videos, local libraries have them. So you've got your little square box and there's a little print hat that sits in the middle of it, and it puts down layers of filament plastic or metal or wood sometimes, and then just scale that to be big enough to do a house. It looks very, very similar just much, much, much bigger. The printer that we have right now the printable area is 40 feet by 40 feet by 30 feet tall, approximately. And then we're about to onboard a second printer that extends the length of that building up to 62 feet. And then instead of the placement of, you know, plastic or metal, we're printing with concrete. Add mixtures, chemical add mixtures to get it to all behave in the right way, kind of stack on top of each other and hold its shape. And the printer starts going in layer by layer, you'll start to see a building slowly, but quickly in the round of building buildings, come up out of the ground.

Zannat Reza (0:08:02):
So Ian assures me that printing concrete is just as strong as a cinder block or any other concrete structure. Just to be sure, they conduct tests by sending samples to labs in partner universities where they crush the samples to measure their strength. That's reassuring, but what about building codes? Do they exist for 3D printed houses?

Ian Arthur (0:08:20):
Not yet, but they are coming. Our lead engineer actually sits on the board of the group developing the first international standards for 3D construction printing. They've got the initial set of documents out for public consultation right now, and we should within the coming months be able to see the final documentation of that. That's the first step. Then national building codes have to start to incorporate those similar standards into it, and then we'll see provincial building codes incorporated into it. So it's a long path. It's definitely going to take us a while to get there. But we're moving towards it, and I'm confident that we'll see it happen sometime in the near-ish future.

Zannat Reza (0:09:00):<
How do 3D printed structures compare to the cost of building and maintaining regular housing?

Ian Arthur (0:09:05):
We're a little bit more expensive than a wood frame house still, but we see that switching, inverting very, very quickly where this will be one of the cheapest forms of construction that we can possibly do. I think we're around 20% to 25% higher right now. There's a lot of variables in how you would cost it out. And it changes so dramatically based on the size of the project, the type of building that we're doing, there's fairly set cost per square foot for wood structures. And they don't really change based on the building design. We can dramatically change our cost per square foot based on the building design.

Zannat Reza (0:09:38):
And in case you're wondering how much a 3D printer large enough to build a house actually costs...

Ian Arthur (0:09:43):
It's about two million dollars per printer. For the printer and all the supporting equipment that you kind of need to make it go. So it is a much more capital-intensive investment on the front end. And then the efficiencies start to get delivered after that. So it's not cheap. But I think the cost will come down.

Zannat Reza (0:10:03):
Ian shared other benefits of 3D houses. They can withstand extreme changes and weather brought on by climate change. And they also have lower carbon emissions compared to traditionally built houses.

Ian Arthur (0:10:14):
They're definitely stronger. You're building a home in concrete, it's going to be more climate resilient than a wood equivalent, for sure, not just against tornadoes. There's a lot of interest in places like Florida or anywhere where you would get a lot of flooding. Ideally, you don't want to hope to flood at all. If it does flood, the concrete's going to be easier to repair and have as a resilient product, then it would be with a wood house. So I think the buildings are exactly the sort of buildings we need to be looking at for the future. I also think they're going to be around a really long time. We'd like our homes to be multi-generational, hundred-year homes minimum. They need to be climate resilient if they're going to last that long, but also not having to rebuild. There's a huge amount of embodied carbon every time we put up a new

Zannat Reza: (0:10:42)
This all sounds promising, but how exactly do you build a house using a 3D printer?

Ian Arthur: (0:10:48)
Start with the picture in your mind. It looks very similar, just much, much bigger. The printer that we have right now, the printable area is 40 feet by 40 feet by 30 feet tall, approximately. And then we're about to onboard a second printer that extends the length of that building up to 62 feet. We're printing with concrete, using admixtures and chemical add mixtures to get it to behave in the right way and stack on top of each other and hold its shape.

Zannat Reza: (0:12:20)
So Ian assures me that printing concrete is just as strong as a cinderblock or any other concrete structure. But what about building codes? Do they exist for 3D printed houses?

Ian Arthur: (0:12:32)
Not yet, but they are coming. Our lead engineer sits on the board of the group developing the first international standards for 3D construction printing. We should within the coming months be able to see the final documentation of that. It's a long path. In the meantime, the approach is to use engineers and engineers' stamps.

Zannat Reza: (0:13:48)
How do 3D printed structures compare to the cost of building and maintaining regular housing?

Ian Arthur: (0:13:54)
We're a little bit more expensive than a wood frame house still, but we see that switching, inverting very, very quickly where this will be one of the cheapest forms of construction that we can possibly do. There's a lot of variables in how you would cost it out. Our ideal minimum would be ten buildings with however many units within those ten buildings.

Zannat Reza: (0:15:08)
For the printer and all the supporting equipment that you need to make it go, it's about two million dollars per printer. Ian shared other benefits of 3D houses. They can withstand extreme changes and weather brought on by climate change, and they also have lower carbon emissions compared to traditionally built houses.

Ian Arthur: (0:15:28)
They're definitely stronger. You're building a home in concrete; it's going to be more climate resilient than a wood equivalent, for sure. We'd like our homes to be multi-generational, hundred-year homes minimum. They need to be climate resilient if they're going to last that long, but also not having to rebuild.

Zannat Reza: (0:16:38)
So it sounds like we're at the start of something exciting. Not only can 3D printed houses withstand variations in climate, but they can also last over a hundred years and almost be built overnight. But what we need to accelerate the production of 3D houses is more printers and less red tape. And maybe this will pave the way for more affordable housing that can be customized to be age-friendly.

(0:17:10) - Zannat Reza: So in ten words or less, finish this sentence. The future of aging should be... (0:17:19) - Ian Arthur: How about just fun? I love it. Yeah. Think it. It should be just... It should be fun. It should be something to fear. (0:17:31) - Zannat Reza: That's great. And I'm guessing this is also gonna be part of your answer for where time traveling, you know, here's Ian, you're a hundred. What does your ideal life look like? (0:17:43) - Ian Arthur: I hope it's always interesting. I really do. I hope that I get to work on stuff that's challenging. And I remember, it's a few years ago now, Jean Chretien had just released his newest book, his and some members or something. And and less about whether you like it or dislike this is in the political conversation, this is that I was invited to a reading that he did. And I think he was he's I don't remember what age he was, but he skipped on to stage and was cracking jokes and had a great time. And I was just like, god, I hope I'm that. Like, I hope I'm writing or doing something or contributing in a meaningful way. And and I hope I do it with a sense of humor and and that, you know, everything stays in place long enough in terms of functionality to make that feasible. (0:18:30) - Zannat Reza: I love that answer. I think that's great. Well, thanks, Ian, for dropping by. This has been a real pleasure.

(0:17:53) - Zannat Reza: To learn more and for transcripts, go to the future age.ca. Listen to new episodes by following us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're liking our podcast, leave a review on Apple or Spotify. And be sure to share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. The future age is brought to you by Essie Health, a not for profit social enterprise whose purpose is to bring hope and happiness to the lives of Canadians. It's produced by the Future of Aging Team and Podium Podcast Company.