Project Team: Max Jarosz, Architect
Michaela Urteaga, Research Assistant
Catalina Cabral-Framinan, Research Assistant
Cindy Ye, Research Assistant

Miami-Dade County offers an urban in-fill program that aims to incentive developers to offer affordable homes to citizens in the Miami community. This project explores the viability of 3d printing within these lots and using the constraints of the infill program. 

The design utilizes a courtyard concept so that each unit have a central courtyard that allows light into the long footprint of the homes. Utilizing 3d printing for this process allows the potential for each of the unit designs to be adjusted based on preferences (e.g., more kitchen space for one family or larger bedrooms for another), with minimal impact on construction costs as the printer can accommodate these varied conditions. It also lets users configure the size of the courtyard if they prefer a larger or smaller courtyard in favor of a larger or smaller backyard. These parameters aim to help produce variety in a normally standardized process that can be replicated across a variety of infill lots offered by the county. 

To build a two-unit town home requires using the printer in multiple configurations but minimizes the construction needed to “connect” the 3d printed components. The “seam” of the project is through the shared hallway of the units, perpendicular to the axis of the courtyard which essentially leaves a small area that would need to be built with CMU construction and tied together during the pouring of the tie-beam. 

Lastly, the project explores the way 3d printed structures can integrate within the landscape. This is studied both in the wall textures that promote plant growth by operating as a lattice, as well as in the landscape paving geometries. Landscape pavers are typically uniform in size due to manufacturing constraints, however utilizing 3D printing for this enables custom pavers to be printed on site that can completely transform the landscape from one unit to the next.