Episode 10: 3-D Printed Houses with Sam Ruben /Mighty Buildings
Today I chat with Sam Ruben, Chief Sustainability officer at Mighty buildings- their mission is to build beautiful, affordable, and sustainable housing using 3-d printing and automation.
Traditional construction produces 3-5 lbs. of waste per square foot. The use of the 3-D printer helps to significantly reduce that. The 3-D printed material is a thermoset composite similar to Corian by Dupont and is four times more insulating that standard concrete. Their 3-D printer uses the UV light to cure the composite as it comes out of the 3-D printer. This helps to have a zero-waste production process.
Using their fabrication system, they can revise the printed finish to be smooth or to better match aesthetics of the neighborhood they occupy. In addition to the fully formed unit produced in factory. They are also producing the mighty kit system which will be a complete house.
These types of systems and modern construction methods are aimed at reducing the 1 in 3 people globally that will be impacted by scarcity by 2025.
They are looking to put the technology in the hands of builders and developers to help accelerate the amounting housing they can produce. Mighty Buildings is looking at a fiber reinforced version of their composite so they can get into multi-family housing and low rise units to help with urban infill density.
They are looking at completing Net Zero Energy Houses by the end of this year!
Mighty Buildings are able to reduce cost through their manufacturing process, they use some of that savings to add batteries for storage, and they are still able to be cheaper than comparable buildings.
Some Key Sustainability Features: They are able to do Zero waste production, Net zero Energy homes, and they have committed to being carbon neutral by 2028.
Mighty buildings are looking into the end-of-life use of their products and how they can use their materials as input into other supply chains to help create more closed loop system.
Sam touches on industrial ecology and why we need to look into ways to better reduce waste in our product life cycle process.
We also touch on cradle to cradle and the need to look at end of life of the product and incorporate that into building life cycle assessments.
Sam and I discuss the the distributor network model for construction and the benefits the factory construction of buildings can have for employment, worker safety, and positive system effects of other connected industries.
We touch on housing affordability and the connection between housing costs, development in wildlife areas and fires in California that have occurred.
You can reach out to Sam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samruben/
You can learn more about Mighty Buildings here: https://mightybuildings.com
