Posted on 12/30/2013 4:48:32 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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, an invisibility 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."
ping
Too many sharp edges for a real room. Someone could bump into the walls and get hurt.
Lots of detail on the printing, though.
You have to dust it with a gas power leaf blower
You would never want to do LSD around that thing,
you’d melt.
That known as Roccoco-Baroque Deluxe
They stole the robot from my av program.
Consider that 3-D printing is in its infancy. Eventually, we will be able to print out masterpieces that are over a billion times more artistic than what Michelangelo or Vincent Van Gogh ever put out.
Meh. Call me when it can print out folded socks and an ironed shirt.
Maybe Gaudi, but I think it has an H.R. Giger feel to it.
This guy said it pretty well.
“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.”
As a fan of Gaudi, this could extend his style. Imagine a color / reflectivity scheme applied to something this detailed.
This is trivial!
To truly advance life as we know it; they need to employ all the obamaphone users pecking away on the keypads.
No thoughtful input is required! Just keep pecking away.Butt calls OK too!
As everyone knows this will produce an infinite amount of great works.Given sufficient time.
It may take some work to sift out the usable bits. When the obamacare programming team has that thing ready they could pivot on to this most necessary project.
Yes, it’s gaudy alright.
"Grotesque" is definitely the right word. It may be a "3D printing" tour-de-force, but IMO is just plain ugly.
Great post!
The question of “can it be done?” having long since been answered, the question “why do it?” surfaces.
IMHO the facility of the technology making form making dependent only on the whim of the designer or the unfolding of an algorithm produces the same emptiness experienced in virtual space.
For some real fun with neo-gaudi high techno-gothic, look at the stuff Mark West is doing at University of Manitoba:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cast_building/index.html
In this case, the form can only be anticipated, as the elasticity of the fabric form work and the cure time of the concrete conspire in the design as much as the architects do.
10 years from now, God willing, we’ll be looking back and laughing at the primitiveness of all this, like we do now at Pong or the Commodore computers or record players in cars.
I think you’re right. Probably by up scaling the printer like this:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QxqROe8tevo
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