World’s first 3D-printed hotel under construction in Texas: ‘Crazy way to build’

The hospitality industry and 3D printing technology are converging in a West Texas desert, building what is being called the world’s first 3D-printed hotel.

An industrial-size printer is extruding layer after layer of a concrete mixture to form the walls of the hotel’s first two model units.

The plan is to expand El Cosmico, a 21-acre hotel and campground, by 40 extra acres to include 43 hotel units and 18 residential homes 3D-printed by ICON, a Texas-based company.

El Cosmico owner and hotelier Liz Lambert said the technology allows for unbridled creativity in construction.

“Most hotels are contained within four walls and a lot of times you are building the same unit over and over and over again,” Lambert said.

“I’ve never been able to build with such little constraint and such fluidity and just the curves and the domes and the parabolas. It’s a crazy way to build.”