House Zero | 2022

Architects: Lake|Flato Architects, San Antonio, Texas, USA Landscape Architects: Word + Carr Design Group, Austin, Texas, USA 
Client: ICON Technology, Inc., Austin, Texas, USA

House Zero is a demonstration project and field trial for a proprietary concrete wall printing system. Beyond that, House Zero is a compelling and climate-responsive new home connecting its inhabitants to a native Texas landscape and an evolving Austin neighborhood fabric. Built for permanence and resilience, the plan allows for the flexibility of ever evolving patterns of living and aging-in-place that a family experiences over the course of a lifetime. The design team collaborated with software developers, robotics engineers, and material scientists to create a new set of architectural innovations and strategies for printed concrete construction. These innovations were used to design a welcoming, practical home that is desirable, livable, and that expands the performance capabilities of 3D printing technology. Designed for net-zero energy, the house features a thermally broken, robustly insulated envelope and a rapid software-controlled construction process, showcasing and pushing the current limits of additive manufacturing at the scale of a building. The house expresses its construction materials proudly: the concrete walls are framed and protected by simple ordered wood elements. Although the house is made using new robotic printing processes, its natural wood, plentiful daylighting and views to nature provide a timeless and rooted to-the-earth quality, drawing attention to the natural world through biophilic design principles. This house is distilled down to essentials. House Zero uses new technology to display enduring things: the honest effort and the raw materials needed to provide lasting shelter, and a deep-rooted sense of place and home.