See inside a 600-square-foot 3D-printed tiny home in Maine made of recyclable materials

The BioHome3D in Maine was printed using bio-based materials.Brittany Chang/Insider

• The University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center 3D-printed a tiny home in November 2022.
• The recyclable home was printed using pellets made of wood waste and a plastic binder.

Most 3D-printed homes popping up around the world have been built using a concrete mix.

Anthony Vu

But the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center (ASCC) has taken a more novel and sustainable approach to 3D printing homes.

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Instead of using concrete, ASCC is printing homes out of wood waste.

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The research and development center has its hands in diverse projects — from floating wind turbines to rebars — all with the goal of creating a sustainable future.

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But we're not here to talk about all of ASCC's various side quests.

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Instead, on an overcast April afternoon, I visited the college campus to see one of its latest projects: the BioHome 3D.

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ASCC unveiled this project in November 2022 as the first 3D-printed tiny home made of "bio-based" materials, making it completely recyclable.

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Source: Insider

To create the printing material, the center used bio-resins to encapsulate wood residuals from sawmills, creating a durable printing material that gives life to wood waste.

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To do this, ASCC works with various industrial partners that specialize in pallet production around the US.

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We’re all familiar with sawdust. When sawdust is ground even further, it becomes a powder-like cellulose nanofiber.

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When this is combined with a plastic binder, the nanofibers can turn into a collection of small pellets.

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These pellets are then fed into ASCC's 3D printer, which is also the world's biggest polymer 3D printer, according to the university.

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Source: University of Maine

This printer essentially functions as a "glue gun with hundreds of settings," Habib Dagher, the founding executive director of the center and principal investigator of this project, told me when I visited …

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… turning the pellets into a printing material that acts like the "ink" of the printer.

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Someday, Dagher wants to source the wood and create the pellets locally.

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There's certainly enough supply to do so: He believes Maine produces enough wood waste to build 100,000 homes annually.

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Source: Insider

To create the home, ASCC took a modular and prefab approach to printing.

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The floor, walls, and roof of the 600-square-foot home were printed as four separate, insulated, and pre-wired 200-square-foot modules in ASCC's manufacturing facility.

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In comparison, many companies only print the walls of the home, often on-site.

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Using a flatbed truck, these modules were then moved outside of the facility and installed onto a concrete foundation within half a day.

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An electrician then spent another two hours powering the unit.

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But because it's a prototype, the home is not connected to plumbing, the center told Insider in January.

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Now, it's undergoing testing — including on the material and its ability to be recycled five times over — to determine what should be changed in the next home.

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But so far, it's fair to be optimistic: The home has successfully survived what Dagher called Maine's "very extreme" winter.

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"This place is so much larger than I expected," I thought when I first walked into the 600-square-foot home.

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The large windows brightened up the interior despite the overcast afternoon.

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And while the ceilings weren't unusually high, they were tall enough to make the space feel open with the natural light.

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The layout wasn't as open-concept as other tiny homes I've seen …

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… which is to say the bedroom and desk were in their own room separate from the living room and kitchen.

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The bedroom and bathroom were surprisingly spacious — significantly larger than ones I've seen in some city apartments.

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The bedroom had large windows, rows of closets, and a desk ….

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… while the bathroom around the corner had all the typical amenities including a large shower.

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The entrance into the living room and kitchen was across the hall from the bathroom.

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Here, the layout looked more like an open-concept living space.

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There was a dining table, seating area, and a sprawling kitchen with a breakfast bar.

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One of the most eye-catching features was the wall that curved into the ceiling. This curve is a signature of 3D printers no matter the printing material.

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You might have noticed that the walls in the bedroom looked like they were printed on an angle …

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… while the ones in the living room look more parallel.

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Throughout the printing process, ASCC tested different printing techniques, creating different final products.

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Some of the walls have also been covered with dry wall, appealing to traditionalists.

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The bio-based printing material doesn't just make for a more sustainable home.

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Its brown tone — similar to wood — gives the home a warm ambiance.

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It's a stark contrast to concrete homes, which gave Icon's House Zero a more contemporary and sleek look.

Icon's over 2,000-square-foot House Zero in Austin.      Brittany Chang/Insider

"[It's not] just the engineering of the home but the livability aspects," Dagher said, noting that people who have visited have "loved" the interior colors and the curve of the walls.

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"Those kinds of livability and ergonomic aspects of the house are very interesting to us and we now have the tools to do it cost-effectively," he said.

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This home is just the start of ASCC's printing venture.

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The end goal is to print a home in 48 hours. This one took about 10 times longer.

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The center is now putting together what will be the new largest polymer 3D printer, which will dwarf its current system.

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And in a year, it'll begin building an extension of its current manufacturing site. The center has already raised over $80 million for this future facility.

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The future factory's first project will be a development of nine homes.

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There's an opportunity for ASCC to make substantial money off of this tech, especially if it sells it to a construction company. But that's not the goal.

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Instead, Dagher says he wants to "franchise" it by building factories in various locations where homes are needed.

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“Our number one priority is to alleviate the societal problems [like housing and sustainable construction] we are facing right now,” he said. “There’s an opportunity here to harness these biomaterials and help solve these problems.”

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