Germany's first subsidized 3D-printed apartment building opens in Lünen, with €1.7 million of state money in a €2 million budget

LÜNEN, Germany, Dec. 11, 2024 — North Rhine-Westphalia's building minister handed six families the keys to Germany's first publicly subsidized apartment building made with a 3D printer. Here's what happened, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of Dec. 11, 2024)

Outcome: Keys handed to six families on Dec. 11, 2024, about 17 months after work began in July 2023, per the ministry. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)
Cost: About €2 million total investment budget, of which about €1.7 million came from the state: €400,000 from its "Innovation in the construction industry" program and about €1.3 million in public housing subsidy. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)
Per square metre: About €4,700 per m² of living space, our arithmetic: €2 million ÷ 423.99 m², both figures from the ministry. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)

What was built

The building stands on a 651 m² plot in Lünen and has 423.99 m² of living space in six units: three two-room apartments of about 60 m² and three three-room apartments of about 80 m². Cold rent is capped at €6.00 per m². The building's owner is the housing cooperative Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft Lünen eG. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)

PERI says the walls of the first two of its three storeys were printed, with a COBOD BOD2 printer and a printing material from Heidelberg Materials. After the printer was dismantled, a third floor was added conventionally and the interior finished. Inside, most rooms don't show that the house was printed; many walls are plastered, and the printed structure is left visible in the stairwell. (PERI 3D Construction project page)

Time and materials

The ministry says the building took 118 hours of pure printing time. Work and groundworks started in July 2023, and the print used 143 tonnes of low-CO₂, 100% recyclable printing concrete. In 3D building printing, the ministry explains, printable concrete or mortar is laid through a nozzle in layers a few centimetres thick, only where material is actually needed. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)

PERI says the printing was done in the fall of 2023 and the residents moved in about a year after the project began. (PERI 3D Construction project page)

Why the state paid

The ministry says the point of the funded project is to gather practical experience with 3D concrete printing as a basis for planning and costing later projects and speeding up their construction. It says it will develop standard procedures, for example for permits, site preparation and construction, and make them public. It calls Lünen the fourth completed 3D concrete printing project in the state. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)

"With the help of this building project we can gather important experience from which future building projects will benefit," said minister Ina Scharrenbach. Jan Hische of the Lünen cooperative called combining printed concrete with public housing subsidy "an exciting and demanding challenge." (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)

What went wrong

Not yet cheaper. PERI managing director Fabian Meyer-Brötz said printing "can be built more cheaply than conventional methods as early as next year," which is a forecast; the ministry release doesn't claim the Lünen building was cheaper. (NRW building ministry (MHKBD), Dec. 2024)
Tight site, changing weather. PERI says the site was narrow, in a busy residential area, and the fall printing days brought changing weather; it used its 3D MATCONTROL assistance system to keep print results consistent. (PERI 3D Construction project page)
Subsidy rules. PERI says various requirements tied to the public funding had to be met, which PERI says were easily met. (PERI 3D Construction project page)
What we don't know yet: what a conventional six-unit building on the same plot would have cost, which the ministry doesn't give.

Our follow-up question for North Rhine-Westphalia's building ministry

When will the standard procedures from Lünen be published, and how did the €2 million compare with a conventional build of the same size?

Sources

Ministerium für Heimat, Kommunales, Bau und Digitalisierung NRW, “Druckfertig zum Bezug – Deutschlands erstes öffentlich-gefördertes Wohnhaus aus dem 3D-Drucker ist fertig,” Dec. 2024 (in German). mhkbd.nrw
PERI 3D Construction, “Mehrfamilienhaus Lünen” project page, read Oct. 29, 2026. peri3dconstruction.com

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