Sheltering Kentucky, Layer by Layer UK alum builds Kentucky’s 1st 3D-printed concrete home

“We saw exactly why the buildings failed…and to be truthful, we’ve known why buildings fail for a long, long time,” laments Wooldridge, who earned his B.S. in biosystems engineering and M.S. in manufacturing systems engineering (with an additive manufacturing focus) from UK’s Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.  “It isn’t a big mystery as to why they failed. We’ve had the engineering data and computer models for years. The problem is that every time we rebuild, we use the exact same materials and the exact same building processes.”

The devastation mirrored scenes Wooldridge had witnessed before: the EF3 and EF4 tornadoes that tore through Western Kentucky in December 2021, and the floods on both sides of the state in 2022 and 2023, when gentle streams became raging rivers in a matter of hours, sweeping buildings from their foundations, erasing roads and corralling vehicles into twisted piles beneath collapsed bridges.

For Wooldridge, the devastation wasn’t abstract: friends and neighbors were left homeless, repeating, once again, the familiar cycle of destruction and loss witnessed by folks in towns like Mayfield, Bremen, Hazard, Jackson and Hindman.

The merciless storms seem only to be intensifying. With each season, the question grows louder: how do we build something that lasts?

Wooldridge has asked that very question for years. From his base at Somerset Community College (SCC), where he serves as director of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s (KCTCS) Additive Manufacturing Center, he leads a team that is rethinking housing from the ground up — literally.

Kentucky’s unique position makes it a bullseye for severe weather — storms that, according to UK Agricultural Weather Center Senior Meteorologist Matthew Dixon, will only intensify and strike more often.

“Kentucky is in a unique spot,” Dixon explains. “Here in the lower Ohio Valley, different air masses collide. We have cold, dry air dropping in from Canada. We have warm, moist air rising from the Gulf. That mix makes Kentucky the perfect place for storms to ignite, sometimes leading to major disasters. Their frequency has surged in recent decades, taken to another level as our weather patterns become more extreme.”

A month after the tornadoes ripped through their community, Wooldridge and his team turned their innovative ideas into reality, casting Kentucky’s first 3D-printed concrete home. Students, faculty, contractors, government officials and the media watched as the house rose — a tangible model of homes engineered to endure whatever Nature Herself throws at them.

Wooldridge and his team began experimenting with 3D-printed concrete (additive manufacturing) homes in 2022, after the Eastern Kentucky floods revealed a stubborn pattern: communities were rebuilt only to be destroyed again.

Seeing the cycle of destruction — as well as the escalating costs to repair or replace homes affected by Kentucky’s wild weather — the USDA reached out to Wooldridge, intrigued by the virtually limitless applications of 3D printing.

“Our Additive Manufacturing Center has been partnering with the Kentucky USDA Rural Development office for many years, and when they came to us with the question of what could be possible with concrete and 3D-printing,” Wooldridge recounts, explaining how that conversation led to the grant that set the project in motion. “We said, ‘Well, a lot could be possible.’”

With additional funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission, that possibility came to life in June with the 3D printing of Kentucky’s first house. The robotic nozzle swept in arcs, drawing concrete walls line by line. With each layer, walls emerged in slow motion, like geological strata taking shape. “Slow” is relative, though. Wooldridge notes that once the machinery is in place, printing a similar home should take just 3-4 days — a fraction of the weeks traditional construction requires.

Constructed without any wood framing, the project was dubbed “Floodbuster 1.” While the name might conjure childhood memories of a Transformer, this is really the Optimus Prime of housing: built to endure tornadoes and floods that threaten lives and livelihoods across the state.

The intricate – and traditionally impossible – geometry inside the walls is what makes them “super, super strong,” Wooldridge explains. Because the design is so precise, builders use reinforcement only where needed, minimizing material waste and keeping costs down.

By identifying exactly where stress and water are likely to accumulate, Wooldridge’s designs don’t just make homes stronger — they make them easier to recover. After a flood, residents can reoccupy a Floodbuster much faster, avoiding the long-term damage and health hazards that plague conventional wood-framed houses.

“With the ability to use these printers, I can use AI and advanced engineering to design houses that won’t get knocked over,” Wooldridge explains. “They might get flooded, but we can go in and Clorox them out, so to speak, move back in pretty fast, which is essentially what they do in wood ones…except that significant moisture damage to the wood is associated with long-term respiratory issues, mold, and other issues for the rest of the life of the house.”

The economics are compelling, too.

“Modern, wood-frame houses don’t last as long as they used to,” Wooldridge explains, citing the changes in material quality and performance often found in contemporary construction. “After roughly 40 to 50 years, they’re going to need significant maintenance depending on climatic region. Modern developments more often than not involve bulldozing existing older homes so that new ones can be built. Compare that 50-year investment to a house that can be concrete 3D-printed — that could last 100, maybe even 150 years.”

Energy savings are another advantage, though not always in the way people expect.

“They’re definitely more efficient, but not in the way most people think,” Wooldridge teases. “You can get a higher R-value in the walls, but the real savings is in the infiltration sealing. In most homes, the energy is lost from air leakage, the little gaps in the structure. Since a concrete 3D-printed house is built by a machine that is very precise, which means it creates a much tighter seal and can be draft-free. That’s what’s really going to make the significant energy performance difference compared to traditionally framed houses — not just because of our ability to improve the insulation value in the walls, but because it’s completely sealed.”

Combine the longevity with lower building costs and energy savings — as well as lower insurance premiums due to the noncombustible nature of concrete — and Wooldridge says the choice is clear from a financial perspective. But the real reason to embrace 3D-printed concrete homes still boils down to safety and having a place to call home.

Ryan Thigpen, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in UK’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, studies the effects of devastating weather events. He says the innovative work by Wooldridge and his team at SCC offers a rare, practical response to some of the region’s toughest challenges.

Much of Thigpen’s research takes him to the easternmost parts of the state. He’s seen once-robust communities virtually wiped off the map from flooding and the inevitable landslides — what he calls “cascading hazards” — leaving areas with empty storefronts, a handful of businesses and fractured communities.

“I love the small towns and the river valleys in the Appalachians and the mountain communities,” explains Thigpen, a Tennessee native. “I think that’s what makes Appalachia Appalachian. If all these people get flooded out, many will leave town because they just can’t take it anymore, for obvious reasons. What’s Appalachia going to become? Eric’s an Appalachian kid, too. He loves this place — it means everything to him. What he’s trying to do is take the most pragmatic approach to solving some of the biggest problems we’re facing.”

Thigpen points to the potential impact on Kentucky’s most vulnerable communities.

“Have a house destroyed more than once? That’s not what you want to see,” Dixon adds. “At the same point in time, you want to be able to stay in a place where you grew up. It’s home.”

Even when floods force change, Dixon says, infrastructure like Wooldridge’s 3D-printed homes offers hope. “It seems affordable, and that’s huge for Appalachia and helping those folks recover… This type of new infrastructure they’re building sounds great.”

“It’s kind of like PTSD for those folks,” says Dixon. “You go to Eastern Kentucky, there were kids scared to sleep at night because they were afraid their parents would rush in at 2 a.m. and tell them they had to run again…so they slept with their shoes on.”

Thigpen has witnessed this fear firsthand. He’s seen “the toughest, burliest Appalachian dudes” he’d ever met shudder whenever clouds roll in.

“They’re so scared that when it rains — three people live in their house – and when it rains, they take turns staying up, watching the river. They’re just scared to death of what is happening with these extreme floods, landslides and tornado events.”

For Wooldridge, solving these challenges isn’t just about designing stronger homes — it’s about collaborating directly with the people who will eventually build them. He could have taken his ideas to prestigious research universities — he’s had job offers — but Wooldridge understands the real value in Somerset Community College.

“There’s a jewel in the Community College system that people don’t realize,” he says.

Here, he can do the advanced engineering design and 3D printing then immediately work alongside a team trained to bring the designs to life. Heavy equipment operators, construction technicians, welders, CNC operators and robotics specialists are just across the parking lot, ready to turn concepts into reality.

Now that Floodbuster 1 is a reality, Wooldridge and his team are turning their attention from prototypes to real-world applications. The next phase will bring these resilient homes to people who need them most. He is already partnering with others across the nation for concrete 3D-printed residential developments, and soon, he will help Skyland 3D print houses for veterans transitioning to civilian life at Bluegrass Veterans Ranch, part of the Connect Community Village in Somerset, providing not just shelter but stability and a foundation for new beginnings.

The storms will only grow fiercer, and the winds will blow harder. But Wooldridge and his students will keep printing homes that can withstand them.

Perhaps the only insanity left is ignoring the future in front of us, while this team teaches a community it doesn’t have to fail again.