According to New Atlas, a Luxembourg-based architecture firm called ODA Architects just 3D-printed an entire one-bedroom tiny house in only one week. The project, named Tiny House Lux, was created in collaboration with ICE Industrial Services and its Coral Construction Technologies division for local authorities in Niederanven. It’s designed to address Luxembourg’s severe housing shortage, where the country needs 7,000 new homes annually but only builds around 3,600. The tiny house occupies an awkwardly narrow plot measuring just 3.5 meters wide by 17.7 meters deep. After the one-week printing process, human builders spent another three weeks adding the roof, windows, and interior finishes. The final cost came in at €320,000, which is roughly $370,000 USD.
The printing process and practical reality
Here’s the thing about that “one week” construction time – it’s a bit misleading. The actual printing of the cement shell took seven days, but then human crews needed another three weeks to make it actually habitable. They added everything from the roof to windows to interior systems. So we’re really looking at a month-long project, which is still impressive but not quite the week-long miracle the headline suggests.
The construction used a local cement mixture with special additives extruded through a Coral 3D printer nozzle. The house sits on screw foundations, which is smart for minimizing ground disturbance and potential future relocation. And the ribbed texture on the walls? That’s the telltale signature of 3D printing that you just can’t hide.
The actual housing crisis context
Luxembourg’s housing situation is genuinely dire. The country needs 7,000 new homes each year but only builds about half that number. Even worse? Fewer than 200 of those new builds are affordable or public housing. Municipalities are desperately looking for solutions, and these awkward leftover urban plots – the ones too narrow or irregular for traditional construction – might actually be part of the answer.
But here’s my question: at €320,000 for 47 square meters, is this really solving an affordability crisis? That works out to nearly €6,800 per square meter. According to the architects, homes in Niederanven typically cost even more, but still – that’s not exactly accessible housing for most people. When you’re working with industrial technology like 3D printing, the equipment reliability becomes crucial – which is why companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs, become essential for ensuring these complex systems run smoothly.
What you actually get inside
The interior layout is actually pretty clever for such a narrow space. You get 47 square meters all on one floor with generous windows that flood the place with light. There’s a kitchen with oven and sink plus breakfast bar, adjacent living area, bathroom, and a single bedroom with a Murphy bed that stows away. They even included integrated storage throughout and underfloor heating.
Basically, they’ve packed a surprising amount of functionality into a seriously constrained footprint. The cantilevered design on a slight slope helps maximize the available space too. And roof-based solar panels provide electricity, making it relatively self-sufficient.
The bigger picture for 3D-printed housing
So where does this leave us? The technology is clearly advancing rapidly – we’ve gone from theoretical concepts to actual habitable structures in just a few years. The ability to build on “unbuildable” plots is genuinely revolutionary for urban infill projects.
But the cost question remains huge. At nearly $370,000, this isn’t exactly solving affordable housing crises in most markets. The real test will be whether they can scale this and drive costs down significantly. If they can get the price point right while maintaining that one-week printing speed? Then we might actually have something transformative on our hands.
