News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
In the city of Eindhoven the realization of the first of five planned 3D printed concrete houses will start this year. The project, called Project Milestone, is a world’s first, as the houses will all be occupied. The six parties involved showed the design today.
AI Build, a UK-based company developing advanced software and hardware for large-scale, construction (mostly polymer-based) 3D printing applications, unveiled the Cloud Pergola installation at La Biennale di Venezia, as part of the Croatian Pavilion curated by Bruno Juricic.
As NASA launches (this morning) its InSight lander mission to study the Martian planetary interior and underground composition, 3D printing construction firm Apis Cor and architecture studios SEArch+ reveal they will participate in the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge contest, organized by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The main goal of the NASA competition is the promotion of additive technologies that are necessary to create an inhabited environment on Mars.
Although 3D printing promises a revolution in many industries, primarily industrial manufacturing, nowhere are the possibilities greater than in the field of product design and modular architecture. Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, of the cutting-edge San Francisco Bay Area-based design firm Emerging Objects, have developed remarkable techniques for printing architecture from a wide variety of powders.
3D Print Tech Company Aectual made a beautiful debut at the Salone Del Mobile, with an exhibit at Ventura Future with DUS architects and a collaboration with Mae Engelgeer for Wallpaper Handmade. Both show Aectual’s sustainably produced bespoke 3D printed Floors with terrazzo infill.
Arup and CLS Architetti have shared plans to showcase a 3D printed one-bedroom house at Milan’s design festival, Salone del Mobile next month. 3D Housing 05 has been designed to be disassembled and relocated. The team aims to demonstrate that 3D printing concrete technology is now advanced enough to produce flexible and sustainable buildings, quickly and affordably.
Following the publication of the final report from the Danish Partnership for 3D Construction Printing, 3D Printhuset presented the findings in Saudi Arabia at The Big 5 construction conference, in Slovakia at Smart Building 2018, the leading construction conference in the country, and at the BIM Nordic conference in Copenhagen. The Danish company intends to make more presentations in April. 3D Printhuset argues that several recent undocumented claims about buildings completed in 24 hours and skyscrapers to be printed soon are fueling the interest in obtaining more objective information.
Unlike other extra large 3D printed projects that seemed too good to be true, Joris Laarman’s 3D printed steel bridge has been completed, perfectly in line with MX3D’s project timeline. The only thing that was somewhat a letdown, was the idea that the bridge would “build itself on location” as some early animations seem to allude to. However, this is just the beginning. Laarman and the team that worked with him fine-tuned the metal deposition technology to be able to cater to the large size additive production needs of a growing range of industries.
In the rapidly evolving world of construction 3D printing, California based Emerging Objects stands out both as a pioneer and as the only company that approached 3D printing from a modular, “3D printed bricks and tiles” point of view. Its latest 3D Printed Cabin of Curiosities sums up much of the company’s research so far.
The ICON 3D printed house was unveiled in March 2108 in Austin, TX and was built using a prototype of the mobile printer that Austin-based ICON is creating for the association New Story and the developing world.