Indian real estate developer Nestoria Group has announced a large-scale 3D printed housing project in Dholera Smart City, Gujarat. According to the company, this marks one of the first large-scale deployments of 3D printed housing technology in the region, aligning with India’s Viksit Bharat 2047 development vision.
What Is Dholera Smart City?
Dholera Smart City is India’s first planned greenfield smart city, located approximately 100 km southwest of Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Spanning 920 sq km, it is developed under a joint venture structure: Dholera Industrial City Development Limited (DICDL) was established on January 28, 2016, with the Gujarat government (DSIRDA) holding a 51% stake and the central government (NICDC Trust) holding the remaining 49%. The project forms a key node within the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), an India-Japan joint infrastructure initiative.
The city is designed to accommodate approximately 2 million residents and generate around 800,000 jobs by 2040. Major infrastructure is now operational, including the Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway (109 km) and Phase 1 of the Dholera International Airport, completed in December 2025. In the industrial zone, Tata Electronics is developing a semiconductor fabrication facility representing an investment of ₹91,000 crore.
Dholera Smart City’s residential zone encompasses multiple housing typologies — residential plots, multi-story apartments, row houses, and villas — planned across different sectors of the city. The Nestoria Group’s 3D printed housing project represents one element within this broader residential ecosystem.
Nestoria Group Brings 3D Printed Housing to Dholera
Nestoria Group (formally Nestoria Buildcon Pvt. Ltd.) was founded in 2010 and has been developing projects in Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) since 2018. According to the company, the project is among the most large-scale implementations of 3D construction technology in the area.
The company states that 3D printing dramatically reduces construction timelines — structures that previously required months to build can now be completed in days using automated, precision-driven systems. The technology deposits engineered concrete mixtures layer by layer, producing walls that the company describes as smooth, crack-resistant, and structurally consistent across all units.
According to Nestoria Group, additional advantages include significant reductions in material waste, lower on-site disruption, and a reduced overall carbon footprint compared to conventional construction methods.
3D Construction in India’s Housing Sector
India has been exploring concrete 3D printing in construction for several years. In 2021, L&T Construction completed the country’s first 3D printed two-story building in Chennai using a COBOD printer. The emergence of a residential-scale project within a planned smart city reflects growing industry interest in applying the technology beyond one-off demonstrations.
With a target population of 2 million by 2040 and a city designed from scratch, Dholera represents an unusual context for 3D construction: a greenfield environment with coordinated infrastructure planning, government backing, and long-term demand forecasts. Whether the format scales effectively within that environment remains to be seen.
AM Insight Asia Perspective
The announcement comes via an ANI press release and carries strong promotional framing from the company. Independent technical details — such as the number of units, specific equipment used, or construction timeline — are not disclosed in the available source material. Readers should treat performance claims as the company’s own assertions pending third-party verification.
That said, the broader context is significant. Dholera Smart City’s scale, government-backed infrastructure, and demographic targets create conditions that could support sustained demand for industrialized construction methods. For the additive manufacturing sector, large-scale residential deployment in a planned smart city represents a different category of application than the single-structure demonstrations that have characterized much of India’s 3D construction activity to date. How Nestoria Group executes — and whether results are independently documented — will determine the project’s longer-term relevance to the industry.
