3D-Printed Room Looks Like Gaudí On Steroids, Could Signal New Age Of Architecture
Architects in Zurich have erected an impossibly ornate room entirely from 3D-printed blocks. The designers say it’s the first time anyone has used a 3D printer to design a work of architectural art from sandstone and could suggest a new way of thinking about building construction. “We aim to create an architecture that defies classification and reductionism,” said the architects on the project’s website.
We’ll attempt to classify and reduce it anyway: It basically looks like Antoni Gaudí crammed all the flourishes of La Sagrada Familia into a 172-square-feet room. Designed by “customized algorithms,” the architects say the work (called “Digital Grotesque”) is “the first human-scale immersive space entirely constructed out of 3D-printed sandstone.” It was commissioned as both a demonstration of the versatility, and utility, of 3D printing and as an art piece — a portion of the structure will go into the permanent collection of the FRAC Centre art museum in Orleans, France.
Though it looks and feels like art, its construction was as cold and calculating as the inkjet printer on your desk. No masons with chisels. But architects Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillenburger of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology say “Digital Grotesque” is as stimulating as any Renaissance chapel. “It’s all human input,” Hansmeyer told Newsweek. “The computer is just a tool.”
The number of things being 3D printed has exploded in the last few years. The process is becoming incredible versatile: 3D printers work by uploading digitally rendered blueprints for any kind of design you can imagine. Then they layer thin films of material, usually plastic, over and over until the object is formed. People have used it to make exact copies of dinosaur fossils, aninvisibility cloak and even a car.
In each of these objects, the creativity is only limited by the size of the printer; most can’t create objects longer than a few feet. To build the walls for “Digital Grotesque” (which were more than 10 feet high) the fabricators had to print 64 blocks using layers of sand (instead of plastic). According to Gizmag, the printer they used is capable of printing blocks that weigh 12 tons, which is why they used hollowed-out pieces. Stacked together, the entire room is comprised of 260 million distinct surfaces, a design too complex, perhaps, for any chisel. The printer made it happen in about 30 days.
“One of the most astounding things is that it costs exactly as much to 3D print a plain box as it does to print the most elaborate form conceivable,” Hansmeyer told Gizmag. “Not only are the costs identical, but the amount of time required is the same as well. … The implications of this are huge. There is no longer a cost for complexity. No cost for ornament. No cost for individuality.”
Despite his optimism, the room still isn’t cheap, Newsweek reported (though Hansmeyer didn’t say how much). And there are other obstacles, as well. Experts told Newsweek that while a house contains parts using hundreds of kinds of materials, 3D printers are restricted to a few. They didn’t expect that 3D-printed houses would start rolling off the presses any time soon. But one architectural history professor called it “a peek over the technological horizon.”
LINUS 3D Printing 
British architect claims “first architectural application” of 3D printing
News: British architect Adrian Priestman claims to have designed and installed the first 3D-printed components to be approved for use in the construction industry.
“This is truly the first architectural application of the 3D nylon sintered technology,” Priestman told Dezeen, referring to a decorative sheath he developed for a canopy on the roof of the refurbished 6 Bevis Marks office building in central London. “It’s architectural in so far as it’s been through an approval process and tried and tested, and actually installed in a building. It’s an approved product for use in the construction industry.”
Asked whether there are any other 3D printed building components currently approved for use in the construction industry, Priestman said: “Not that I am aware of. If you go to the offices of a major architect like Foster + Partners, they’ve got their own 3D-printing machine, but they’re not actually using the material to perform a function within a building; they’re using it as a modelling tool.”
While many studios have been experimenting with 3D-printing architectural structures and even working towards printing whole houses, Priestman believes his is the first real architectural application of 3D-printing because it has been approved for use by a major construction firm. “There may be someone who has done an installation, but this is a building component that has to stand for fifteen or twenty years; as long as everything that has been warrantied on the building,” he said.
The 3D-printed sheaths were designed to surround a series of complex joints between columns and a web of arms that support the canopy’s EFTE plastic roof. The components were subjected to rigorous environmental testing before being included in the warranty for the roof by EFTE specialist Vector Foiltec, which was responsible for the installation of the canopy.
The architect became involved in the project as a consultant after Vector Foiltec decided that cast steel nodes normally used in this scenario would not fulfil the practical or aesthetic requirements of this project. “They’re not a hundred percent accurate and you can see the process left on the face of the steel,” explained Priestman.
The casings he designed respond to the individual nature of each intersection and were modelled using 3D computer software. They were then printed in sections using a selective laser sintering process and applied to cover the unsightly joints. “It is a purely decorative finish which makes the steel look like it is a cast node but in effect it’s not,” said Priestman. “So if the shroud fell off the steelwork would still stay standing.”
To prove to the client and the building contractor, Skanska, that the parts were suitable for this application, Priestman took samples to an accelerated testing facility. “We got it tested
in 1000-mile-per-hour windsin wind for 2000 hours, extreme weather tested,” he said. “Once I had done that, the product was approved by the big contractors for the building.”The architect says he is now working with Skanska’s innovation team on other potential uses for 3D printing within the building industry. “I’m pushing now to find places to use [3D printing]. It’s going to be driven from an engineering point of view,” added Priestman. “How big can we go? How much of a structural element is it? Let’s start putting it in the built environment.”