ICON's Next-gen Multi-story Construction System
Bigger. Better. Faster. ICON’s next-generation robotic construction system is a breakthrough in large scale 3D-printing. Purpose-built to automate labor, reduce waste, and scale production, it delivers durable, resilient, high-performing structures with unparalleled design flexibility.
New Robot, New Possibilities
A behind-the-scenes look at the development of ICON's latest engineering prototype and the 27 foot-tall architectural demonstration structure.
Phoenix
An intelligent machine designed to elevate and accelerate construction. ICON's next-gen, multi-story printer solves real world construction problems based on our years of printing and building hundreds of structures. The latest technology addresses labor issues, resilient housing needs, supply chain complexity and vendor networks, and schedule predictability to driving efficiency without compromising quality.
Vulcan
Designed and engineered from the ground up for volume 3D printing of single-story homes with precision and speed.
The Vulcan construction system is a combination of hardware, materials, and software to construct homes and large-scale single story structures. Every part of the system has been designed, engineered, and built from systematically from scratch at ICON to build the highest quality homes possible.
Robotics + Software+ Materials
The ICON construction systems consist of the Phoenix or Vulcan printer, based on your project specifications, and the Magma portable mixing unit that prepares ICON’s latest proprietary building material, CarbonX, for printing. All of this hardware is driven by our BuildOS software suite. BuildOS generates and prepares architecture for printing, then controls the robotic hardware on-site to turn digital plans into physical homes.
Vulcan is a large-scale, construction 3D-printer that prints entire homes on location. The printer is designed to be rapidly transported to build sites, then moved quickly from site to site. Vulcan prints directly on the ground or a poured slab.
Magma is a smart, portable factory that feeds a Vulcan printer with material to print a home. Intelligent and working in perfect sync with a Vulcan printer on-site, Magma takes the guesswork out of complex, high-performance cementitious material. The Magma system feeds Vulcan printers with ICON’s advanced cement-based material, CarbonX. Using any of ICON’s proprietary CarbonX blends, the Magma system mixes the material, additives, and water automatically, depending on current site weather conditions, then supplies the ready-to-print CarbonX to the Vulcan. Think of Magma as an extremely smart print cartridge, super-sized for home construction.
CarbonX is a proprietary low-carbon concrete formula created by ICON’s material science team to be both highly printable and incredibly strong. CarbonX has gone through rigorous testing and development yielding an extremely durable building material.
A collection of software products that creates digital architecture and then helps control the robots that turn those designs into physical buildings. BuildOS software spans multiple device interfaces to accelerate construction through high-precision, parametric architecture for ICON’s construction operations.
