Image courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristenelyse/

When I found out that a multidisciplinary design firm out of London, PostlerFerguson, developed a 3D printed-stabilized sand-hive structure that uses evaporation to passively cool the air I assumed that they too must have interacted with swarms of ill-tempered bees.  I have no way to substantiate this assumption, but I will wax enthusiastic about the project because it involves an intriguing material: stabilized sand.

Image courtesy PFSK.com

Stabilized sand consists of concrete sand to which approximately 10% of cement is added to give the sand extra stability and hydraulic properties, and it can be mixed in a concrete plant under controlled conditions.  While more traditional stabilized sand has been used primarily in the construction of roads and as flat, load-bearing foundations for concrete retaining walls, it’s also showing up lately in more exciting applications such as “Better Brick,” a project wherein bacteria in solution cement particles of sand together to make bricks.  Stabilized sand is a good candidate for 3D printing – imagine if we could essentially print sandstone, layer by layer, in any form imaginable?

Image courtesy www.metropolis.com

The design of each Air Hive incorporates massive internal surface area, which allows the structure to cool the air by evaporating moisture in it as it passes through.  “The designers refer to the work as ‘not just an installation, but a building language that can be reused again and again to create new public spaces.’ Roads, piazzas, buildings, halls, rooms, architectural ornament—adding non-electrical air-cooling technology to the built environment on a huge variety of scales and conjuring up images of 3D-printed sandstone ornamental cornices on buildings being used to cool urban streetscapes” (Manaugh).  For some reason I keep imagining blocks of these springing up in the desert outside of Las Vegas.

Images courtesy PFSK.com

WU XING:

I’ve filed Air Hives under water because they are evaporative cooling systems and under earth because they are made of stabilized sand.

Cited:

Manaugh, Geoff. “Air Hive.” BLDGBLOG.com 12/09/10. Accessed 12/28/10.  URL.

“A New Kind of Sandcastle” PFSK.com 12/10/10.  Accessed 12/28/10. URL.

While waiting for my latest dress to arrive (it’s a snazzy sky-blue linen number with strategic pleats, in case you wondered) I started daydreaming about a world where people’s bodies might be discretely scanned in 3D and the data uploaded to stores, whereupon clothing designs would be tweaked to fit by experts then sent to home printers to be 3D printed out of recyclable materials and worn almost immediately.  That would combine many of my favorite things in to one giant ball of awesome: instant gratification, rapid prototyping, mass customization, zero transportation cost, and zero production waste.  If you’re thinking, “yeah sure, maybe in the year 3011,” then go ahead and have your little chuckle.  Go on.  Laugh it up.  And now prepare to have your mind BLOWN.

Designer-researchers at Freedom of Creation in Amsterdam and Philip Delamore at the London College of Fashion are currently “cranking out seamless, flexible textile structures using software that converts three-dimensional body data into skin-conforming fabric structures. The potential for bespoke clothing, tailored to the specific individual, are as abundant as the patterns that can be created, from interlocking Mobius motifs to tightly woven meshes” (Chua).  You can see the 3D textiles on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City at the time of this writing.

Images Courtesy www.freedomofcreation.com

The technology uses ultraviolet beams to fuse layers of powdered, recyclable thermoplastic, and the process produces almost no waste. “Its localized production and one-size-fits-all approach also racks up markedly fewer travel miles, requires less labor, and compresses fabrication time to a matter of hours, rather than weeks or months” (Chua).  This technology is going to make a needle and a thread seem quaint, and don’t even mention a thimble or people will laugh derisively, much as you may have been doing before you found out that this technology is REALLY REALLY REAL.

Freedom of Creation also 3D prints objects – furniture, bags, and the like.  I’ve included a few choice photos from their website for your perusal below.

WU XING

I’m filing it under fire because of the melting, and wood because of the plastic.

Cited:

Chua, Jasmin Malik. “Are 3D-printed Fabrics the Future of Sustainable Textiles?” Ecouterre.com 07/29/10. Accessed 08/05/10.  URL.