Icon: Designed With Love

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Co-Founders Evan Loomis and Jason Ballard are pure entrepreneurs whose passion for changing the global housing crisis is palpable. Their company Icon is de-constructing previous means and methods humans use to build homes (and, well anything really).

I first heard about Icon from a friend and was immediately drawn by their off-world projects (it sounds like a sci-fi dream come true, right?). But the deeper I dove into the company, the more I loved it’s mission, and it’s founders.

My first step in researching any company is to check out their website, since this is usually where I get a good foundation of what the company does, and who it’s founders are. Interestingly, I couldn’t find anything about Evan or Jason on their website. Not even their names or their photos. It begged the question, why? So, I went to Twitter, to LinkedIn, and to Google for articles and videos, and the answer I discovered was that these two individuals are Purpose driven, with a capital P, as Jason would say. What Jason and Evan want to get across is that their mission is the important message. Their tech is the important message. They’re just the messengers.

I watched Jason’s SXSW talk, and in his trademark cowboy hat, he told me about the depth of the global housing crisis, and how the resources for current solutions aren’t even close to making a dent. As I continued watching it, I was mesmerized by how his emotions conveyed the sincerity of his words. I was supposed to be learning about his background, but I found myself wholly invested in Icon’s mission to build a better world. This is the kind of person Jason Ballard is; someone who cares more about creating actual solutions than making a name for himself. It’s only fitting that by his side is an equally awesome guy: Evan Loomis.

Evan Loomis got his start on Wall Street and then Co-Founded TreeHouse with Jason in 2010. TreeHouse was on a similar vain to Icon, in that it’s mission was to disrupt the field of home improvements by providing services that promoted healthy, sustainable, and beautiful home upgrades. But qualifications aside, what really made me appreciate Evan as a person, was a letter he hand-wrote to Elon Musk and published on Twitter. In the letter, Evan thanks Elon for being himself and tells him that his two children are so inspired by him, and even equate him to an Avenger. Evan wrote this letter because he believes that “people doing great things need encouragement… especially… in an environment with such negative news coming out daily.” This hit home for me, since this blog, and even this article, is trying to do the same thing.

Between Evan’s letter, and Jason’s talk, it was clear that with Purpose driven founders, Icon by extension, has to be a great company. So, I started to look into what Icon really does, and let me tell you, it does not disappoint.

Icon develops advanced construction technologies to advance humanity.  They combine giant 3D printing robots, ground breaking materials and software that radically changes the entire construction process of not just homes, but neighborhoods, and even buildings on the moon.

The 3D printer, affectionately named Vulcan, is a home-sized printer that is designed to be rapidly transported between build sites and can print structures up to 3,000 square feet without relocation. The “extremely smart, giant, print cartridge” that feeds the Vulcan, aka Magma, is Icon’s portable factory. Magma ingests dry “lavacrete” (Icon’s building material which I’ll talk about next) and then, in real time, adjusts the hydration formula based on the build site conditions. Once the formula is mixed, Magma pumps the lavacrete into the Vulcan for printing.

Lavacrete is an incredibly durable, yet yielding, cement based material. It’s printed at high speeds while retaining its form. Lavacrete has a strength of 2,000-3,000psi. Most building code requirements for drywall are around 400psi, and in structural tests Icon’s lavacrete exceeded building code design requirements by a whopping 350%. From a design perspective, I like the look of this material. It has a very organic feel and looks almost like chorded carpet. It visually encapsulates how different Icon’s methods of construction are to traditional ones.

(On a complete side note, I love all the names that Icon came up with for their tech, it makes their company seem so approachable.)

The final piece to complete the well rounded construction process, is the Build OS.This software is the brains of the operation, and it translates floor plans into print jobs and directs Vulcan and Magma using real time data (down the millisecond). Their sleek interface is accessible through tablets and phones for ease onsite, and features predictive analysis and machine learning for the Vulcan robots.

In short, Icon’s Vulcan construction system means homes can be built stronger, faster (since the printers can run 24/7), and with less waste. Human beings have been building with sticks and stones for far too long. The future is here and we need to start constructing like it, which brings me to Icon’s off-world projects.

Icon and NASA are working together on Olympus which will support efforts to build humanity’s first home on another planet. Let that sink in for a second.

Olympus will be similar to Icon’s existing Vulcan system, but instead of using Lavacrete, Olympus will use the moon’s natural resources. Because the lunar environment is the harshest, this project will serve as Olympus’ baptism by fire to make its transition to other planets and moons much easier. Icon has already 3D printed a 1,700 square feet structure for Nasa, called Mars Dune Alpha, to simulate a realistic Mars habitat. Mars Dune Alpha will help researchers of all varieties prepare for humanity’s potential new home.

Icon is serving humanity and Jason and Evan are leading the frontier. Jason says it best, “there is not a bright human future if we cannot shelter ourselves appropriately.” It’s about time that someone actually solves a problem and not just talks about it or profits from it. I hope Jason and Evan read this at some point, and if they do, let me just say thank you and I can’t wait to see what Icon does next.

Check out Icon on Twitter to stay up to date on their latest projects.

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