#3D Printing Construction

[chemicalresearchspecialist]

LARGEST AND FASTEST-GROWING 3D PRINTING CONSTRUCTION MARKET

The 3D printing construction market size is estimated to be USD 3 million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 1,575 million by 2024, at a CAGR of 245.9% between 2019 and 2024. Advantages of 3D printing such as cost-effective, time-saving, environmentally friendly, reusable waste materials, durability, and resistance to fire, are resulting in an increasing demand for the technology from various…

[solarpunkbusiness]

Swiss researchers develop robotic additive manufacturing method that uses earth-based materials—and not cement

Researchers at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland, have developed a new robotic additive manufacturing method to help make the construction industry more sustainable. Unlike concrete 3D printing, the process does not require cement.

According to a press statement from ETH Zurich, the robotic printing process, called impact printing, uses cheap, abundant, and low-carbon earth-based materials such as clay or excavated earth. Currently, the robotic additive manufacturing method uses a mix of excavated materials, silt, and clay. Most of the custom material is common waste product sourced locally from Eberhard Unternehmungen, a Swiss construction company. In the future, the process could use other materials.

With ETH Zurich’s method, a robot deposits material from above, gradually building a wall. On impact, the pieces of material bond together, with minimal additives. Whereas concrete 3D printing creates layers, ETH Zurich’s method extrudes and drops the material one bit at a time at velocities of up to 10 meters per second. The fast speed allows the material to bond quickly.

ETH Zurich’s process can build full-scale, freeform structures, including one- or two-story walls and columns. The printing tool has been used to build structures as tall as almost 10 feet. The process results in walls with a bumpy texture, but robotic surface finishing methods can achieve a smoother finish.

The custom printing tool can be integrated with multiple robotic platforms. As a result, the tool can build walls in both offsite facilities and onsite construction projects. At ETH Zurich’s Robotic Fabrication Laboratory, the tool has been integrated with a high-payload gantry system. The hardware can be mounted on an autonomous legged excavator to build walls on sites with variable terrain.

ETH Zurich says it aims to increase the cost competitiveness of sustainable building materials through efficient and automated production.

[cognitivejustice]

In late 2022, an initiative between the University of Maine and local nonprofit Penquis unveiled its prototype — BioHome3D, the first 100-percent recyclable house. Now, the pioneering project is working toward completing its first livable housing complex. It will be fully bio-based, meaning all materials will be derived from living organisms such as plants and other renewable agricultural, marine and forestry materials. 

a neighborhood of 600-square-foot, 3D-printed, bio-based houses crafted from materials like wood fibers and bioresins. The aim: a complex of 100-percent recyclable buildings that will provide homes to those experiencing houselessness.

[maniakminis]

I bought a new brand of 3D Printer filament for my Ender 3, now I'm just looking over and watching my printer like an old man watches a construction site.

[reasonsforhope]

"In the far western desert of Texas, a striking 3D-printed hotel with Swedish style will take shape over the coming years to present both the beauty and savings of 3D printing to the country and the world.

The architecture is handled by Swedish design architect Bjarke Ingels, while the printers will be supplied by Austin-based 3D printing company ICON, that [has] really taken the technology to the next level with 3D-printed batteries and whole neighborhoods besides.

The two are teaming up to transform the El Cosmico hotel/campground in Marfa, Texas, into a 62-acre remote hotel with an infinity pool, art exhibition hall, outdoor bathhouse, and outdoor kitchen, all designed as an homage to both the desert surroundings and the cosmic show on display in the night sky above.

The local West Texas earth is being added to the 3D printing cement mixture to ensure the luxury cabins blend in with their surroundings.

“The promise of 3D printing is that the printer doesn’t care how complex the design is, if it uses organic curvature, dome-like shapes, or hyperbolic paraboloids,” Ingels, an early investor in Icon and a frequent design collaborator on its 3D-printed projects, told AD.

“All it cares about is how long it takes to print and how much material [it is] going to deploy, so you can make a square box or a beautiful domed house at the same cost.”

That cost can be around 30% less than traditional methods, as well as 350% stronger depending on the size and scope of the project.

The hotel rooms will all feature skylights to allow unobstructed viewing of the night sky, and expansive views of the Davis Mountains. Just next door is Big Bend National Park, one of the largest in the Lower 48, and a paradise of desert exploration.

El Cosmico “2.0.” is predicted to begin construction in 2024."

-via Good News Network, 3/27/23

[mathart]

[enddaysengine]

Scrabbling Ribcage (Model)

Apparently I'm back a little bit early. Jumped into Blender and TinkerCAD for the first time in a long while to make another Pathfinder model! I'm rather quite pleased with how it came out!

If you want to mess around with it yourself or want to take a shot at 3D printing it, you can find the files on Patreon and Thingiverse.

[roxysmini]

Damnit... is my head too small, or my neck too big ?? It looks strange from the sides and some angles, but good from the front and other angles...

Would hair help with proportions ??? I'm lost.

Feat an old pair of gold eyes I made. Not his final ones, but good enough for now.

[jcmarchi]

Finding a sweet spot between radical and relevant

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/finding-a-sweet-spot-between-radical-and-relevant/

Finding a sweet spot between radical and relevant

While working as a lecturer in MIT’s Department of Architecture, Skylar Tibbits SM ’10 was also building art installations in galleries all over the world. Most of these installations featured complex structures created from algorithmically designed and computationally fabricated parts, building off Tibbits’ graduate work at the Institute.

Late one night in 2011 he was working with his team for hours — painstakingly riveting and bolting together thousands of tiny parts — to install a corridor-spanning work called VoltaDom at MIT for the Institute’s 150th anniversary celebration.

“There was a moment during the assembly when I realized this was the opposite of what I was interested in. We have elegant code for design and fabrication, but we didn’t have elegant code for construction. How can we promote things to build themselves? That is where the research agenda for my lab really came into being,” he says.

Tibbits, now a tenured associate professor of design research, co-directs the Self-Assembly Lab in the Department of Architecture, where he and his collaborators study self-organizing systems, programmable materials, and transformable structures that respond to their environments.

Play video

His research covers a diverse range of projects, including furniture that autonomously assembles from parts dropped into a water tank, rapid 3D printing with molten aluminum, and programmable textiles that sense temperature and automatically adjust to cool the body.

“If you were to ask someone on the street about self-assembly, they probably think of IKEA. But that is not what we mean. I am not the ‘self’ that is going to assemble something. Instead, the parts should build themselves,” he says.

Creative foundations

As a child growing up near Philadelphia, the hands-on Tibbits did like to build things manually. He took a keen interest in art and design, inspired by his aunt and uncle who were both professional artists, and his grandfather, who worked as an architect.

Tibbits decided to study architecture at Philadelphia University (now called Thomas Jefferson University) and chose the institution based on his grandfather’s advice to pick a college that was strong in design.

“At that time, I didn’t really know what that meant,” he recalls, but it was good advice. Being able to think like a designer helped form his career trajectory and continues to fuel the work he and his collaborators do in the Self-Assembly Lab.

While he was studying architecture, the digitization boom was changing many aspects of the field. Initially he and his classmates were drafting by hand, but software and digital fabrication equipment soon overtook traditional methods.

Wanting to get ahead of the curve, Tibbits taught himself to code. He used equipment in a sign shop owned by the father of classmate Jared Laucks (who is now a research scientist and co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab) to digitally fabricate objects before their school had the necessary machines.

Looking to further his education, Tibbits decided to pursue graduate studies at MIT because he wanted to learn computation from full-time computer scientists rather than architects teaching digital tools.

“I wanted to learn a different discipline and really enter a different world. That is what brought me to MIT, and I never left,” he says.

Tibbits earned dual master’s degrees in computer science and design and computation, delving deeper the theory of computation and the question of what it means to compute. He became interested in the challenge of embedding information into our everyday world.

One of his most influential experiences as a graduate student was a series of projects he worked on in the Center for Bits and Atoms that involved building reconfigurable robots.

“I wanted to figure out how to program materials to change shape, change properties, or assemble themselves,” he says.

He was pondering these questions as he graduated from MIT and joined the Institute as a lecturer, teaching studios and labs in the Department of Architecture. Eventually, he decided to become a research scientist so he could run a lab of his own.

“I had some prior experience in architectural practice, but I was really fascinated by what I was doing at MIT. It seemed like there were a million things I wanted to work on, so staying here to teach and do research was the perfect opportunity,” he says.

Launching a lab

As he was forming the Self-Assembly Lab, Tibbits had a chance meeting with someone wearing a Stratasys t-shirt at Flour Bakery and Café, near campus. (Stratasys is a manufacturer of 3D printers.)

A lightbulb went off in his head.

“I asked them, why can’t I print a material that behaves like a robot and just walks off the machine? Why can’t I print robots without adding electronics or motors or wires or mechanisms?” he says.

That idea gave rise to one of his lab’s earliest projects: 4D printing. The process involves using a multimaterial 3D printer to print objects designed to sense, actuate, and transform themselves over time.

To accomplish this, Tibbits and his team link material properties with a certain activation energy. For instance, moisture will transform cellulose, and temperature will activate polymers. The researchers fabricate materials into certain geometries so they can leverage these activation energies to transform the material in predictable and precise ways.

“It is almost like making everything a ‘smart’ material,” he says.

The lab’s initial 4D printing work has evolved to include different materials, such as textiles, and has led the team to invent new printing processes, such as rapid liquid printing and liquid metal printing.

They have used 4D printing in many applications, often working with industry partners. For instance, they collaborated with Airbus to develop thin blades that can fold and curl themselves to control the airflow to an airplane’s engine.

On an even greater scale, the team also embarked on a multiyear project in 2015 with the organization Invena in the Maldives to leverage self-assembly to “grow” small islands and rebuild beaches, which could help protect this archipelago from rising seas.

To do this, they fabricate submersible devices that, based on their geometry and the natural forces of the ocean like wave energy and tides, promote the accumulation of sand in specific areas to become sand bars.

They have now created nine field installations in the Maldives, the largest of which measures approximately 60 square meters. The end goal is to promote the self-organization of sand into protective barriers against sea level rise, rebuild beaches to fight erosion, and eliminate the need to dredge for land reclamation.

They are now working on similar projects in Iceland with J. Jih, associate professor of the practice in architectural design at MIT, looking at mountain erosion and volcanic lava flows, and Tibbits foresees many potential applications for self-assembly in natural environments.

“There are almost an unlimited number of places, and an unlimited number of forces that we could harness to tackle big, important problems, whether it is beach erosion or protecting communities from volcanoes,” he says.

Blending the radical and the relevant

Self-organizing sand bars are a prime example of a project that combines a radical idea with a relevant application, Tibbits says. He strives to find projects that strike such a balance and don’t only push boundaries without solving a real-world problem.

Working with brilliant and passionate researchers in the Self-Assembly Lab helps Tibbits stay inspired and creative as they launch new projects aimed at tackling big problems.

He feels especially passionate about his role as a teacher and mentor. In addition to teaching three or four courses each year, he directs the undergraduate design program at MIT.

Any MIT student can choose to major or minor in design, and the program focuses on many aspects and types of design to give students a broad foundation they can apply in their future careers.

“I am passionate about creating polymath designers at MIT who can apply design to any other discipline, and vice-versa. I think my lab is the ethos of that, where we take creative approaches and apply them to research, and where we apply new principles from different disciplines to create new forms of design,” he says.

Outside the lab and classroom, Tibbits often finds inspiration by spending time on the water. He lives at the beach on the North Shore of Massachusetts and is a surfer, a hobby he had dabbled in during his youth, but which really took hold after he moved to the Bay State for graduate school.

“It is such an amazing sport to keep you in tune with the forces of the ocean. You can’t control the environment, so to ride a wave you have to find a way to harness it,” he says.

[arc3d]

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN LOOKING FOR A 3D PRINTING WEBSITE

Introduction  

In the rapidly evolving world of design and construction, 3D printing has surfaced as a transformative technology, particularly in architectural maquettes and 3D modeling for construction. As metropolises like Abu Dhabi continue to expand with innovative structures, the demand for precise, high-quality 3D published models has flooded. opting for the right 3D printing website is pivotal for professionals seeking to rephrase their digital designs into real prototypes. Whether it's for creating detailed architectural maquettes or functional construction elements, a dependable 3D printing service can significantly impact the success of a design. Let's explore crucial considerations to ensure you choose the most appropriate 3D printing website to meet your design’s specific requirements, concentrating on aspects like material selection, printing quality, cost, turnaround time, and the role of client support offered. 

 Pointers to Contemplate When Looking for a 3D Printing Website - 

 1. Understanding Your Design Needs  

 Before diving into the selection process, it's essential to have a clear understanding of your design conditions. 3D printing serves different endeavours, from Architectural Maquette and construction factors to jewellery and medical bias. Knowing whether you need a detailed, small-scale model or a larger, operational prototype will guide your decision. Different websites may specialize in different types of 3D printing, so align your design’s requirements with the service’s expertise. 

2. Material Options and Quality  

One of the most crucial aspects of 3D printing is the selection of accoutrements. For architectural maquettes, accoutrements that mimic the texture and colour of the real construction materials are frequently preferred. Websites that offer a wide range of material choices allow for more flexibility in achieving the asked aesthetic and practical properties. also, the quality of these accoutrements plays a vital part in the final design, impacting the durability, strength, and detail of the printed model. 

 3. Printing Technology and Precision  

Not all 3D printing technologies are produced equal. The technology used can greatly affect the perfection, face finish, and strength of the printed object. For illustration, Fused Deposit Modeling( FDM) is generally used for its cost-effectiveness and speed, but it may not give the high resolution needed for detailed architectural maquettes. On the other hand, Stereolithography( SLA) and Selective Ray Sintering( SLS) offer exceptional detail and smooth finishes, making them ideal for intricate designs. Understanding the technology offered by the 3D printing website and its appropriateness for your design is pivotal in ensuring the most excellent possible result. 

4. Customization Capabilities  

Customization is frequently a crucial demand in 3D printing, especially for undertakings that involve unique designs or bespoke factors. Look for websites that offer comprehensive customization options, similar to the capability to choose precise material finishes, colours, and post-processing treatments. This is particularly important for architectural maquettes where accurate representation of textures and finishes can make a significant difference. A good 3D printing website should give a range of customization features that allow you to conform the final product to your exact specifications. 

5. Cost and Value for money 

While cost is always a consideration, it should be counted against the value given. Cheaper services might save money but could lead to lower-quality prints or longer reversal times, which can be harmful to your design’s success. Consider the total cost, including material, technology, customization, and shipping. Some websites may offer reductions for bulk orders or long-term contracts, which can be advantageous for ongoing designs. also, transparent pricing without hidden freights ensures that you can budget accurately for your 3D printing requirements. 

6. Time taken for Delivery  

Time is frequently a critical factor in design operations. The speed at which a 3D printing website can produce and deliver your order is pivotal, particularly for designs with tight deadlines. Some services offer expedited printing and shipping options for an added figure, which can be a lifesaver in time-sensitive situations. still, it's also important to balance speed with quality; rushing a print can occasionally lead to mistakes or faults. ensure that the website can meet your timeline without compromising the quality of the final product. 

7. Client Support and Communication  

Good client support is essential when working with a 3D printing service. Whether you need help with file preparation, material selection, or tracking your order, responsive and knowledgeable client support can make a significant difference. Look for websites that offer multiple communication channels, similar to live chat, phone assistance, and email, and that give prompt responses to inquiries. client support can also be a pivotal factor when dealing with issues similar to print faults or delivery problems, so guarantee the service you choose has a strong prestige in this area. 

 8. Character and Reviews  

In an industry where the final product’s quality can vary significantly between providers, character matters. Looking for a 3D printing website’s character through client reviews, case studies, and other clients can give precious perceptivity to the service’s trustability and the quality of its prints. Pay attention to feedback regarding print quality, client service, and adherence to delivery times. Websites with a strong portfolio of successful designs, particularly in your area of interest like architectural maquettes or 3D modelling for construction, are more likely to meet your prospects. 

9. Post-Processing and Finishing Services  

Post-processing can significantly enhance the quality and appearance of the 3D published models. Whether it’s sanding, painting, or adding other finishes, these services are pivotal for achieving a professional-grade final product. For architectural maquettes, post-processing might involve adding textures, and colours, or indeed integrating the model with other accoutrements. Assure the 3D printing website offers the level of finishing you want and whether these services are performed with perfection and attention to detail. 

11. Environmental Concerns 

 As sustainability becomes increasingly important in all areas, the environmental impact of 3D printing is a consideration worth noting. Some 3D printing websites prioritise eco-friendly practices, similar to using biodegradable accoutrements, reusing waste, and employing energy-effective processes. However, look for services that align with these values, If sustainability is a priority for your design. This is particularly applicable in metropolises like Abu Dhabi, where sustainable construction practices are getting more current. 3D printing abu dhabi is changing the entire industry scenario by allowing for rapid modelling and tailored production resolution.

Conclusion  

Choosing the correct 3D printing website is a pivotal step in guaranteeing the success of your design, whether it involves creating an intricate architectural maquette or producing functional construction elements. By considering factors such as material options, publishing technology, customization capabilities, cost, and client support, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your design’s specific requirements. In dynamic and fleetly growing regions like Abu Dhabi, where innovation in construction is at the front, having access to a dependable and high-quality 3D printing service is more important than ever. Take the time to probe and assess implicit providers, ensuring that they not only meet your current conditions but can also support your future ideas in the innovative world of 3D modelling and printing.

[shashipundir]

Top Emerging Trends in Urban Planning

Urban planning is evolving rapidly to meet the challenges of growing cities and changing needs for sustainable living. From smart cities to green infrastructure, transit-oriented development, and community-focused planning, innovative trends are shaping the future of our urban environments. Learn how these trends are making urban areas more livable and resilient.

Key Highlights:

Smart Cities: Leveraging IoT, AI, and smart grids for efficient urban management.

Green Infrastructure: Promoting green buildings, renewable energy, and water management.

Transit-Oriented Development: Enhancing accessibility and reducing carbon footprints.

Community-Centric Planning: Fostering public participation, inclusivity, and place-making.

Resilience and Disaster Preparedness: Building climate-resilient and disaster-ready cities.

Mixed-Use Developments: Creating vibrant, self-contained communities.

Public Spaces and Urban Greenery: Improving quality of life with parks and green spaces.

Data-Driven Planning: Utilizing urban analytics for better decision-making.

Discover how cities like Pune are implementing these trends to enhance urban greenery and community spaces.

For a detailed look into these emerging trends and their impact on sustainable living, visit our website. You can also read more about sustainable building practices in our article on Net Zero Energy Buildings.

📢 Call to Action: Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest insights on urban planning and sustainability. Join TheCivilStudies community and ask your questions.

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[afprinted]

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