Dallas Startup Eyes 3D-Printed Homebuilding in Collin County

By now, we should know that progress is hard to contain. Last month, we wondered aloud whether the technique of 3D-printed concrete structures would catch on in Dallas-Fort Worth. Little did we know it was just a matter of days before such a project would show up in North Texas.

Von Perry LLC, a Dallas-based startup co-founded by two 20-somethings, announced it’s planning to use the 3D method to build a 1,700-square-foot, single-family home in the Collin County town of Nevada, east of Lavon. It’s the first such project in North Texas and Texas’ third 3D-printed home project.

Last month, homebuilder Lennar Homes and ICON, an Austin-based construction firm, jointly announced that it was collaborating on a 100-home development in Austin, making it the world’s largest community of 3D-printed structures.

In March, Kansas City-based 3Strands announced the United States’ first 3D-printed homes coming soon to east Austin. The four homes ranging in size from about 1,000 to 2,000 square feet were printed in less than a week.

Last week, Von Perry shared its plans to build a house with a computer-controlled machine, in effect, a printer. The walls are built one layer at a time, using a concrete mix squeezed out by machines provided by Minnesota-based Total Kustom. The machines will build walls upon a concrete slab foundation, leaving spaces where insulation and wiring can be added. A wood-rafter roof system also will be added.

The Von Perry house is expected to be completed in early 2022. Von Perry was founded by Sebin Joseph, 27, and Treyvon Perry, 21. Perry is a third-year architecture student at the University of Texas at Arlington.

In 2020, Perry gave a TED talk at TEDxUTA on the technology behind building 3D-printed homes. Later, he put out a LinkedIn call-up for a chief technology officer to help launch Von Perry formally.

“Literally within the first hour or so I had 50 submissions,” Perry told Dallas Innovates. “And Sebin popped up as somebody who was very passionate in the belief and the goal of the company. Ever since then, we’ve just been clicking and hitting our goals non-stop.”

Last month CandysDirt.com spoke to veteran developer Tom Woliver of Dallas-based Oxland Advisors, the company behind McKinney’s new Painted Tree development, about the home building innovation. He called the 3D-printed housing concept “a very interesting innovation (but) … it will likely take decades for the building codes and city ordinances to catch up on what the acceptable practices are.”

Von Perry obtained permission from a Collin County engineer, effectively fast-tracking the standard building codes that builders face in a city such as Dallas.

“Construction is a very old industry, perhaps the oldest industry in the world,” Joseph told Dallas Innovates. “So when you introduce a new technique into that already existing norm, there’ll be huge resistance. We’re also facing that.”