Initiative 99 - Design a Home to Be Built for $99,000 or Less

To address the global housing crisis, the building industry must reinvent itself to provide high-quality homes faster, more affordable and individually catered to its future residents’ needs: Nearly half of Americans say the rising cost of living is the biggest threat to their long-term financial security.

With “Collective Parts”, Beta Realities combines the power of construction-scale 3D printing with a software approach to planning that integrates the homeowners into a collective planning process. With their design platform, Beta Realities is a winner of ICON Initiative 99, providing a solution for scalable and affordable housing at scale.

Working together with ICON, the worldwide largest provider of 3D-printed home solutions, Beta Realities' combination of user-friendly design software and a kit of parts presents a powerful technology platform: Transforming the planning, production, and construction chain with a more participatory approach to affordable architecture and neighborhoods that focus on the needs of their users. An integrated end-to-end process commences with the initial building design: By designing functional objects instead of preconfigured homes, intelligent building parts precede the actual building.

Collective Parts enable flexible neighborhood layouts to be created on-demand, within set timeframes and budgets. Collective Parts place the planning of beautiful homes directly into the hands of future residents, empowering community involvement and engagement.

The software approach to architecture: Smart homes empowered by automation.

Three components are integral to provide custom 3d printed solutions for affordable buildings and neighborhoods that focus on the needs of their users. Marvin Bratke, founding partner of Beta Realities, is working on digital solutions to architecture: “To react to newly arising challenges of the housing market, Collective Parts is conceived as an interactive planning platform, using machine learning and state-of-the-art computation to anticipate user flows, changes in operations and material life cycles. We generate highly flexible interior layouts, based on modular building blocks.”

A flexible kit of parts.

Through user-friendly custom software, future homeowners easily select suitable and affordable building parts. This seamless software assists in the selection of appropriate building parts, compiling them into customizable options for homes. Users can plan, decide, and explore numerous design possibilities, validating and optimizing their choices.

AI Assisted Planning Software - By designing functional objects instead of preconfigured homes, we save materials and harness the power of AI-assisted planning to create efficient and adequate layouts. Users have the freedom to select various densities and alignments for their houses within a neighborhood setup. This approach empowers multiple users to form urban aggregations collectively. The software generates fully engineered multi-family homes, complete with area schedules, floor plans, cost estimates, and embodied carbon calculations.

Automated Construction - Our integrated software and Kit-of-Part approach ensure meticulous control over every aspect of the building’s lifecycle. Supply chain automation and quality adherence are guaranteed. The software feeds fabrication information directly to 3D printers on-site for automated construction, revolutionizing on-demand housing. Prefabricated fitouts with a healthy material palette get installed directly on site.

Scalable communities on-demand.

From shape and size to design and appearance, all elements are customizable and deployable based on the customer’s preferences and budget. Embedded adaptive furniture for both interior and exterior spaces maximize the advantages of individual 3D printing. By creating service-oriented products, Collective Parts offer the potential for brand collaborations and new circular business models. The software can include seasonal offerings, continuous updates, and curated collections, unlocking unparalleled benefits for partners and future residents.

Paul Clemens Bart, Partner of Beta Realities, is working on emerging technology in construction: “A digital design workflow was crafted to create modular, prefabricated building blocks that allow for scalability and fast construction on a multitude of locations. Using this AI powered process guarantees efficient planning and eliminates planning errors. In a digital workflow, the building blocks contains construction information that is directly send to ICON’s 3D printers.”

Vivid communities with a future-proof concept.

“Collective Parts” is designed for a community in Austin, Texas – as proofing ground for a worldwide scaling strategy. We seek to construct residences catering to people of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles while preserving our planet’s resources. The innovative and digitalized end-to-end processes of Collective Parts enable flexible neighborhood layouts to be created on-demand, within set timeframes and budgets. By digitally transforming the construction industry, starting from planning to in-situ production, our system delivers superior quality, healthier, sustainable, and affordable living experiences. Collective Parts place the planning of beautiful homes directly into the hands of future residents, empowering community involvement and engagement.

About Beta Realities

We build Beta Realities. Founded in 2023, with studios in Berlin and New York, we stand for innovative, circular and transformative architecture and design. With our interdisciplinary approach, we plan novel and adaptive spatial concepts combining architecture, interior, product design and research.

We are a tight-knit, international team who carefully connect technology, ecology and architecture to address societies and time deepest challenges. Inventors at heart, we partner with visionaries who shape tomorrow’s spaces.

We challenge conventions and question the norm to leave the traditional boundaries of disciplines behind us. Transformative designs that unleash the full potential of people and nature.

As a team, we plan architecture, interiors and products with a transformative effect, a participatory approach, and a positive impact. Together we design for optimistic futures that enable and inspire innovation and help our customers, builders, users, experts and the public to shape it positively.

Our project experience extends internationally across many continents: We plan and realize office buildings, hotels, residential and commercial buildings, cultural institutions, high-rises, museums, installations, and products with a high standard of design, innovation and circularity.

Project Infoplatform: Collective Partsclient: Icon Technology Inc.

location: Austin, Texas, USA

program: Residential, Social Housing

visualization: Yoshi Render, Morean

video animation: Morean