{"id":331161,"date":"2026-07-06T21:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/331161\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T21:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:33:15","slug":"bright-community-trust-to-build-3d-printed-house-in-st-pete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/331161\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright Community Trust to build 3D printed house in St. Pete"},"content":{"rendered":"

Providing attainable housing opportunities to community members is at the heart of Bright Community Trust\u2019s mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The nonprofit builds homes that it eventually sells to clients. However, the properties are held in a land trust. This ensures long-term affordability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bright Community Trust president and chief impact officer Frank Wells believes that innovation can have an invaluable impact on the Tampa Bay region in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently, the organization is collaborating with construction technology company Solvenah to build a 3D printed home in St. Petersburg\u2019s Childs Park neighborhood. The Build Additive<\/a> organization developed the machine to perform the work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 3D printing is \u201ca method of making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many thin layers of a material in succession.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For this endeavor, just the exterior walls will be \u201cprinted.\u201d The house is expected to be completed by September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBright has been keeping an eye on emerging technologies in the housing sector for a long time,\u201d Wells explained. \u201cThere have been some challenges with these technologies getting them to speed and making them commercially viable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once Wells met the Solvenah and Build Additive teams, he realized that they had identified some of the barriers to \u201c3D printing\u201d homes.<\/p>\n

Carl David is one of the founders of Solvenah (formerly known as BIA Robotics). He is the building contractor on the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to basically take innovation and apply it to the design and build aspect of building a home,\u201d David said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re trying to build a house properly, structurally sound and have some character to it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Decisions such as slab curvatures can provide more creative flexibility for home owners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He explained that creating the mixture has been one of the biggest challenges for the effort. This is due to humidity and heat. If the mixture is not \u201cright,\u201d it could impact the quality of the concrete.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A 3D printed exterior wall. Photo by Michael Connor.<\/p>\n

For David, teamwork has been essential, especially due to the project\u2019s experimental nature.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out different ways to make this the most efficient,\u201d he explained. \u201cWorking together with different minds that really excel in their areas of expertise, to me, has been the best part.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daniel Hechavarria is Solvenah\u2019s co-founder and construction operations and development associate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to build a self-sustainable home,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe\u2019re here to make a change for St. Pete and the surrounding communities as well. We\u2019re trying to repeat this over and over again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Frank Marquette is the co-founder of the Michigan-based Build Additive<\/a>. He said that this is the first time the company\u2019s machine has been deployed in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A proprietary cement formulation is mixed on site, Marquette explained. Utilizing a nozzle, the 3D printer then uses the blend to create the walls. The process is completed layer by layer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBright is always looking for \u2018how do we keep our budget as workable as possible?\u2019 and \u2018how do we reduce the construction timeline on these homes?\u2019,\u201d Wells said. \u201cWe have more and more demand for housing, but our construction trades have fewer and fewer workers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

People are aging out of the business, he added, and not enough individuals are replacing them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bright Community Trust\u2019s Childs Park 3D printed home. Rendering provided.<\/p>\n

Bright Community Trust plans to work on additional 3D printed projects in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can go out to a different home site and pour another slab and basically print the exact same house,\u201d Wells explained. \u201cWe\u2019re expecting that doing one house will probably not actually save any dollars, but when we go and do a group of four or five houses together, being able to do this quickly and move from one to the next will actually start both producing financial and time savings.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bright Community Trust website\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Providing attainable housing opportunities to community members is at the heart of Bright Community Trust\u2019s mission.\u00a0 The nonprofit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-331161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}