St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Austin Will Be the First 3D-Printed Church in the U.S.

A 1959 Building Past Its Prime

St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, has limped along since it was built in 1959. The main nave is assembled from remnants of older construction projects that have not aged well. The foundation rests on old telephone poles rotting into the ground, the roofs leak, and asbestos hides under every carpeted surface. Rector Zac Koons says he occasionally hears a raccoon skittering in his office ceiling.

By 2021 the congregation had a plan for a new building, but construction costs were soaring and they would need to raise roughly $8 million. Worse, Koons recognized a bigger problem: the proposed design was boring. Consultants warned they would raise only a fraction of what they needed for something so uninspiring. Plans stalled for years.

Enter ICON, and a Parishioner's Pitch

The turn came in 2023, when Overland Partners architect Rick Archer called Koons about a demo he had seen: a construction company could 3D print walls up to 30 feet high. That company was ICON, founded by Jason Ballard, a St. Mark's parishioner who had previously started the eco-friendly home store TreeHouse before pivoting to high-tech construction.

ICON builds structures with a robotic crane arm that deposits a concrete mixture in tiny layers that add up to form walls. Ballard says the resulting buildings are ecologically friendly, nontoxic, fire and flood resistant, and surpass strength code by 300 percent. He claims ICON can put up a building at about 40 percent of the cost of standard construction.

What 3D Printing Buys a Congregation

For St. Mark's, printing promised a bolder, original design for less money, plus a building that would be more durable and need less maintenance. Koons was drawn to the idea of a structure that looked not two decades ahead but two centuries. The congregation, which draws between 200 and 250 attendees every Sunday, eventually surpassed its $8 million fundraising goal.

ICON has already drawn national attention with hurricane-proof homes on the Gulf Coast, permanent homes for the homeless, and a shelter built with NASA to test living on Mars. Printing a church was a different kind of showcase: a chance, in Ballard's words, to be a signpost to the eternal beauty and generosity of God.

A Design Drawn From a Renaissance Painting

The new building's design is inspired by Fra Angelico's early Renaissance painting of the Annunciation. The floor plan is an oval with the altar at the center and pews radiating outward, evoking a womb with Christ at the center. Behind the altar, a tall sliver of a window fitted with gold-colored glass will cast a glow over the congregants. Nearly every surface is curved, white, and smooth, with a hook of wall circling the entrance and a garden representing Eden linking the building to Austin's urban trail network.

Architect Rick Archer, who has practiced since the 1970s, notes that churches have historically been patrons of architectural advancement, developing the arch, the vault, and the flying buttress. With printing, he can create shapes conventional construction cannot. His caveat: the technology is proven, but never at this scale and height, so the team is solving problems as they go.

Why a Church, Why Now

Proponents say 3D-printed construction could revive sacred architecture, letting congregations build distinctive, durable worship spaces without the eight-figure budgets that scare off donors. St. Mark's is now planning to build what it believes will be the first 3D-printed church in the United States, and possibly the world. If the project lands as intended, Austin may become a destination for people who simply want to come and pray.