(This Sept. 26 story has been corrected to say the area of expansion is 60 acres, not 40 acres, in paragraph 2)
By Evan Garcia
MARFA, Texas (Reuters) - It looks like any other 3D printer - except it's the size of a crane and is, layer by layer, building a hotel in the Texan desert.
El Cosmico, an existing hotel and campground on the outskirts of the city of Marfa, is expanding. It is building 43 new hotel units and 18 residential homes over 60 acres (24 hectares) - all with a 3D printer.
It is the world's first 3D-printed hotel, says El Cosmico owner Liz Lambert and the partners behind the project - Austin, Texas-based 3D printing company ICON and architects Bjarke Ingels Group.
Lambert said the technology allows for unprecedented creativity.
"Most hotels are contained within four walls and a lot of times you are building the same unit over and over and over again," Lambert said. "I've never been able to build with such little constraint and such fluidity ... just the curves, and the domes, and the parabolas. It's a crazy way to build."
The units can include architectural features that would normally be too expensive to replicate on a large scale with traditional construction, according to Lambert.
The single-story, 12-foot (3.7-meter) high walls of the first two units under construction are a three-bedroom residential space and single-room hotel unit. The curvy, beige-colored walls are being piped out by ICON's Vulcan, a 46.5-feet (14.2 m) wide 3D printer standing 15.5 feet (4.7 m) and weighing 4.75 tons.
A print technician monitors Vulcan as its robotic arm and nozzle glide through the work site on a gantry.
The "ink" of this 3D printer is a special cement-based material called Lavacrete, a proprietary mixture designed for strength, affordable scale, and printability. ICON CEO and founder Jason Ballard said workers adjust and blend the ingredients based on weather conditions.
"The magic happens in the admixtures that allow us to continue printing," Ballard said, adding that humidity, temperature, and irradiance affect the material's behavior and even the final color.
ICON is also working on a 3D-printed neighborhood of homes near Austin.
In the long term, 3D-printed construction could displace some skilled laboring jobs, said Milad Bazli, a science and technology lecturer at Charles Darwin University in Australia.
"I think from the social point of view and the effect on the economy in terms of the local jobs, especially in remote areas, that will be one of the challenges that we need to consider when we're going to the 3D printing method," Bazli said.
The expansion of El Cosmico is set to be completed by 2026. The hotel units will range between $200 and $450 per night.