The home building industry is primed for innovation â and the advancements may help new homes weather a changing climate. For Jason Ballard, the future of housing is 3D printing. As the co-founder of Icon, a construction technologies startup that uses 3D printing in place of traditional construction, Ballard believes that, rather than framing walls and hanging drywall, workers of the future will use robots to spit out ribbons of concrete.
Construction workers add the roofs, windows, and insulation the traditional way. And, Ballard said, because there is currently a dearth of skilled labor in construction, he envisions spending the next decade or two trying to shore up human labor shortages. 'It will be a long time coming before we're, like, actively displacing jobs with what we do,' Ballard said.