UMaine Scales BioHome3D Into a Nine-Home 3D-Printed Neighborhood

Four years after unveiling the world's first fully bio-based 3D-printed house, the University of Maine is preparing to build something bigger: a neighborhood. Nine homes, to be exact, all produced using the same additive manufacturing process that created the original 600-square-foot BioHome3D prototype.

The project pairs UMaine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center with Penquis, a Maine nonprofit focused on affordable housing. Together they plan to construct a cluster of 3D-printed homes in the Greater Bangor area. The homes will be similar to the prototype unveiled in 2022, with one bedroom, one bathroom, and a combined kitchen and living room.

The key difference is scale. The original BioHome3D was printed using a system that deposited roughly 100 pounds of material per hour. UMaine's newer large-format printer runs closer to 500 pounds per hour, and future equipment should hit about 1,000 pounds per hour. That jump matters when you shift from printing a single house to printing nine of them.

Researchers will build the homes in three stages, testing each round, making adjustments, and applying those lessons forward. The work is happening inside UMaine's Factory of the Future, part of the new GEM facility. The goal is to prove that BioHome3D can move from a one-off demonstration to a repeatable manufacturing system.

The project received $4 million in Congressionally Directed Spending secured by Senator Susan Collins. Penquis already has $3 million in federal, local, and private funds earmarked for site preparation and supporting infrastructure.

UMaine's material choice sets BioHome3D apart from other large-format printing efforts. The mix uses wood fiber and bio-resins derived from residual wood at Maine sawmills. That creates a second market for material that would otherwise be waste, and it keeps the carbon footprint low.

The prototype has already survived three Maine winters. Researchers continue to monitor moisture performance, thermal behavior, and long-term durability. Scaling up means those findings need to hold across a series of homes rather than just one. The team also has to satisfy fire-resistance requirements and other building codes before the homes can be occupied.

Habib Dagher, executive director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center, frames the project as a validation step toward something much larger. "Those homes give us an opportunity to validate and improve the manufacturing system we would need to ultimately produce housing at a much larger scale," he said.

If the three-stage build goes as planned, the result will be Maine's first 3D-printed neighborhood and a working model for other communities facing similar housing shortages. The technology still needs commercial certification, but this project moves it a significant step closer to real-world adoption.