MIT Architect Plans to Print Her Own Buildings

Alex Knapp

Robot Overlords


3-D Printing is probably one of the most exciting technologies emerging right now.  As it becomes more accessible, it will truly revolutionize manufacturing and materials science. (And you know it’s on the move since it’s already involved in intellectual property litigation.)  Last year saw a number of stunning innovations in the field, and the best innovations are still to come.

Neri Oxman, an architect and professor at the MIT Media Lab, is working on one such set of research — using 3-D printing technology for buildings.

"Existing 3-D printers, also called rapid prototyping machines, build structures layer by layer. So far these machines have been used mainly to make detailed plastic models based on computer designs. But as such printers improve and become capable of using more durable materials, including metals, they’ve become a potentially interesting way to make working products.

Oxman is working to extend the capabilities of these machines—making it possible to change the elasticity of a polymer or the porosity of concrete as it’s printed, for example—and mounting print heads on flexible robot arms that have greater freedom of movement than current printers.

She’s also drawing inspiration from nature to develop new design strategies that take advantage of these capabilities. For example, the density of wood in a palm tree trunk varies, depending on the load it must support. The densest wood is on the outside, where bending stress is the greatest, while the center is porous and weighs less. Oxman estimates that making concrete columns this way—with low-density porous concrete in the center—could reduce the amount of concrete needed by more than 10 percent, a significant savings on the scale of a construction project."

It’ll be interesting to see if this becomes a feasible building process.  The minute control over materials made possible by 3-D printing could definitely make a difference in pre-fabricating materials for construction. But I think the big question here is whether it can be cost-effective over current techniques — and whether customers will buy even if they are.

Still, I think it’s an exciting avenue for research and I’m excited about the possibilities for this technology to be applied to construction.

Thanks to Next Big Future for the link.


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