Roughly 12 months after breaking ground, the largest 3D printed housing development in Canada, Kakatoosoyiists, or Star Lodges in Blackfoot, is ready to welcome 16 members of the Siksika Nation in need of transitional housing. Kakatoosoyiists’s four lodges are laid out on a site that resembles an urban cul-de-sac, standing in contrast with the grasslands that surround the Siksika 146 reserve, in Southern Alberta’s Treaty 7 territory — a landscape that’s been essential to the survival of the Blackfoot people. Built in extruded concrete by nidus3D, a 3D construction start-up based in Ontario, the imposing nature of the structures is softened by their rounded corners, and a texture akin to the layers of sedimentary rock found in the Bearpaw Shale, a geologic formation that extends across the region.

A motif that mimics the wooden poles protruding from a teepee’s top crowns the pitched roofs of the lodges, which are constructed in timber and clad with metal sheeting to protect the structures from the elements. Inside, moisture-resistant type X gypsum-board panels divide each space into four 580 square-foot units, whose open layout offers residents access to the healing qualities of abundant sunlight and fresh air in both the living and sleeping areas.

Demonstrating that simplicity doesn’t have to preclude cultural significance, a dedicated space to hold Blackfoot sacred bundles was tucked into the lodges’ bedrooms by the design team, which included students from the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, led by associate professor Mauricio Soto-Rubio, as well as members of the Siksika Nation.

The successful execution of the $2.6 million project is an important milestone in the advancement of Canada’s building technology, and it offers a glimmer of hope in mitigating the effects of chronic underfunding of Indigenous housing, especially for Alberta’s First Nations. Due to a $141 million funding gap, one in five on-reserve homes in Alberta are in need of major repairs, adding pressure to a housing shortage estimated at 27,770 units. The absence of adequate ventilation systems, compounded by substandard construction quality, leaves on-reserve homes vulnerable to moisture, as wood-based materials are consistently devoured by mould, present in at least a third of all dwellings in Alberta’s Indigenous communities.

It was in the face of these challenges that the Siksika Nation decided to partner with nidus3D, and try out a sturdy alternative that would provide much-needed shelter to community members at risk of homelessness, improve housing quality and support long-term savings. “We’re always looking for different ways to build homes better, faster, cheaper,” says Ryan Hall, housing manager of the Siksika Nation — and 3D construction fit the bill.

This system boasts many benefits, including flexibility, durability and even sustainability, as it allows for significant improvements in waste reduction while making it cost-effective to improve energy efficiency, says Ian Arthur, president and co-founder of nidus3D. “We can build to net-zero ready with ease, because there’s not huge increases in cost for us to hit more advanced energy standards.”

Unlike wood-frame construction, 3D printing allows for thicker walls that accommodate more insulation material, at no additional cost. “To get the same depth for additional insulation with wood frame, for instance, you’re going from a two-by-six construction to two-by-eight for your wall boards,” Arthur explains. “Those are hugely more expensive.”

But the nascent nature of this technology brings along a breadth of challenges that limit its capacity to consistently deliver on its pledge. “I think we have a problem in Canada where we don’t really like being first,” Arthur says, noting that nidus3D is the only 3D construction venture in Canada focused on housing. “There’s this sort of innate conservatism, where we really want to see things proven out by everyone else in the world prior to taking the plunge and adopting it here.”

There are many reasons to remain skeptical. One is that despite the upfront costs required to carry out 3D construction, the technology’s scope remains limited. In the case of Kakatoosoyiists, nidus3D’s equipment had to travel 3,379 kilometres between Kingston, Ontario, and the Siksika reserve, incurring additional costs to extrude less than 240 metres of exterior walls (roughly the length of a cruise ship) while all other building components continued to rely on traditional construction methods. “Right now, exterior and load bearing walls is all that we cover,” Arthur says. Increasing the scope to include elements such as foundation pads and roofing packages is essential to speed up construction, and drive down costs.

Another significant challenge is that 3D printed construction requires a special type of concrete that’s thick enough to harden in place without the need of forms, fluid enough to pass through the printer’s nozzle and strong enough to meet the requirements determined by the Canadian Standards Association. “We are one of the few companies globally that are actually printing with structural concrete,” Arthur says, noting that the large aggregates required to achieve this can clog the printers and cause delays. For Kakatoosoyiists, nidus3D used portland limestone cement — but it took some trial and error to concoct the perfect mix. Of the 16 buildings nidus3D printed at the Siksika Nation, the first one took the team 14 days to extrude, while the last one took only five.

Despite the technology’s shortcomings, Arthur remains optimistic for its future. Following a labour shortage impacting Canada’s construction industry, in April, the federal government announced its intention to fund the development of new building practices — an effort that could catalyze the potential of 3D construction, and produce high-quality homes faster to meet the country’s growing demand. “We have such an enormous housing crisis that if we don’t look for new and innovative ways of supplying it, we’re never going to catch up,” Arthur says. “We’ve recently got engagement from the National Research Council to start looking at this.”

With additional investment, start-up ventures like nidus3D can not only expand their scope and experiment with new, greener materials to extrude, they can also attract and train more workers in the building trades and expand the possibilities of any given site. “We can build and design almost anything,” Arthur says. “And I think architects are very excited about this technology, because suddenly you can do a curved wall for the same price as you can do a straight wall, and that’s never been an option.”