Dive Brief:

• Doka Ventures, a unit of Austrian construction company Umdasch Group, has invested in 3-D printing company Contour Crafting Corporation and now holds 30% of the business, according to I4U News.

• Contour Crafting's technology uses robotic systems to construct buildings from CAD data. Behrokh Khoshnevis, president and CEO of the company, developed the technology at the University of Southern California.

• The company currently focuses on the homebuilding space and plans to use its 3-D printing technology to fabricate emergency and low-cost housing. It aims to expand into typical residential units and commercial construction.

Dive Insight:

The investment from a traditional construction company signals that 3-D printing's foothold in the industry continues to strengthen. While 3-D printing entire structures likely won't become industry standard anytime soon, the technology offers the ability to quickly fabricate components and smaller products.

Contour Crafting isn't the first to explore the use of 3-D printing for emergency housing. Last year, researchers at Imperial College, University College London, and the University of Bath announced they would study how aerial additive building manufacturing could be used to create post-disaster housing. They plan to use drone-gathered information to create a design that drones fitted with 3-D printing technology can then build. The researchers said this method is ideal for areas that are not accessible after natural or other disasters.

For longer-term housing, Tennessee-based Branch Technology announced in 2016 that it would build the winning design of its first 3-D printed, single-family home design competition — architecture firm WATG Chicago's Curve Appeal — this year. Curve Appeal will also serve as a testing ground for Branch's 3-D printed carbon-fiber-reinforced wall cores.