3D Home Printing for the Developing World

New Story works with local governments to secure land, bring in utilities, and create communities for families displaced by disasters or living in unsafe areas. Families help design their homes and communities and own both their homes and the land. Lafci says local partners bring knowledge and relationships the founders could not supply themselves.

The founders designed an early donation experience around three promises: donors could learn about a family, all of their gift would fund the home, and they would receive a video when the family moved in. With no engineer or launch funds, the team made a static crowdfunding page on Webflow and updated its progress meter by hand. They raised about $100,000 within a couple of months, enough to work with a local partner in Haiti to build their first six homes.

During YC, partner Kevin Hale challenged New Story to reach its annual goal of 100 funded homes in three months. The team launched 100 Homes in 100 Days and reached the goal in about 92 days, then explored funding whole communities through its Architects Program. Lafci says home counts alone do not show impact; the team also tracks outcomes such as changes in families’ sleep and uses follow-up data to improve each community.

New Story explored 3D printing as a way to build homes faster and at lower cost without reducing quality, partnering with construction startup ICON to develop a cement printer. The first Austin home passed city housing code, and Lafci reported compression test results three times stronger than their typical block homes. The team estimated printing could eventually cut home costs from about $6,500 to $3,000 and build time from 15 days to under 24 hours, while designing the machine to handle constraints such as power outages and limited access to potable water.

After the Austin proof of concept, New Story planned further product development and testing before printing a community in El Salvador. Lafci emphasized that families, governments, architects, and machine operators would need information and confidence in the homes’ safety. Hagler said the printer remained an R&D project, and the best way to establish a model for adoption was to prove it in the field first.