News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
The National University of Singapore (NUS) has launched a new program focused on construction AM through its Centre for Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS). The program, spearheaded by the School of Design and Environment at NUS and supported by the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), will aim to advance and accelerate the adoption of 3D printing in the construction industry.
As construction 3D printing projects on land continue to grow, it has also become clearer that one of the first and most beneficial applications of digital and additive construction technologies is for reconstructing the Ocean’s floor in a way that favors repopulation by corals and fish. Based on years of coral restoration research, supported by designers and engineers, studio Emerging Objects worked with Boston Ceramics and the SECORE organization to develop a new generation of 3D printed settlement substrates that aim at meeting coral larvae’s needs while equally fulfilling requirements for effective reef restoration. Right now, the first prototypes are being tested in the field.
Dubai-based AM company Immensa Technology Labs has become the first UAE company to submit a patent related to additive manufacturing. Founded in 2016, the company was also the UAE’s first privately owned company to specialize in AM technologies.
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.