When browsing the 3D printing tag on ArchDaily, it is clear that this technology has developed at an incredibly fast pace. If in the early years we observed the concept as a distant possibility for the future or with small-scale examples, in recent years we have observed entire printed buildings and increasingly complex volumes being produced. Developed by reading a computer file, the fabrication is carried out through additive manufacturing with concrete - or other construction materials - and presents numerous difficulties in providing an efficient process that enables the constructive technique to become widespread. The pavilion printed by the Huizenprinters consortium, for example, illustrates this process well.
Founded in late 2017, named one of the "Most Innovative Companies in the World" in 2020, and selected as ArchDaily's Best New Practices of 2021, ICON is a construction company that pushed the boundaries of technology, developing tools to advance humanity including robotics, software, and building materials. Relatively young, the Texas-based start-up has been delivering 3D-printed homes across the US and Mexico, trying to address global housing challenges while also developing construction systems to support future exploration of the Moon, with partners BIG and NASA.
Featured on Times’ Next 100, as one of the 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future, Jason Ballard, CEO and Co-Founder of ICON spoke to ArchDaily about the inception of the company, worldwide housing challenges, his ever-evolving 3D printing technology, and process, his partnership with BIG, and the future of the construction field on earth and in space.
Robotic Collaboration. Image Courtesy of ETH Zurich
Digital spaces and fabrication technology have become as prominent as ever within the current state of our post-pandemic society, becoming increasingly more accessible and enabling quick and spontaneous acts of iteration and evolution. These technologies have resulted in the ability to mass-produce non-standard, highly differentiated building components within the same facility as their standardized counterpart, transforming how buildings and their respective components are conceived, designed, and represented, and how they are manufactured, assembled, and produced.
The beauty of digital fabrication is its ability to blend aspects of mass and artisanal production to the point where costs nearly disappear. Technology’s capacity to fabricate so simply and almost seamlessly raise the issues for its potential to significantly alter our current perception of architecture, thus producing the question: has the influence of mass production in architecture resulted in a loss of intentional design?
Believing that a creator has a duty towards society, Philippe Starck, is a multifaceted designer whose projects span across many disciplines. From architecture and interiors to industrial and furniture design, Starck’s portfolio is always, as he puts it, “focused on the essential”, and “must improve the lives of as many people as possible”. Author of Alessi’s famous lemon squeezer, he is known for pushing the boundary of design in everyday objects.
With 10,000 creations, completed or yet to come, Philippe Starck is a pioneer in “making things in the way of ecology”. In fact, ArchDaily had the chance to meet the designer at the 2021 Salone del Mobile, to discuss his design approach and visions as well as hislatest plywood creation for Andreu World.
What does it take to build a smart city from nothing? Or maybe the better question is, what does it take to build a smart city from nothing and make it successful? For over a decade, architects and urban planners worked hand in hand to create Songdo, a brand new business district that sought to represent South Korean advancements in technology and infrastructure. Songdo was once a model for how we would live in cities of the future- but now, the reality of what this smart city quickly became has us rethinking how the combination of technology and community might have gone wrong.
Would you be willing to buy a home from a robot using only an app? As technology becomes more and more integrated into the design and real estate sector, that once an outlandish idea has become a reality. Only a decade ago, almost no one talked about technology and start-ups in the built environment. The real estate industry, which has historically lacked technological innovations compared to other sectors, is now taking a stance to reinvent itself as an industry that is more efficient, flexible, and automated- all resulting in one of the newest buzzwords that has taken the world by storm, proptech or Property technology.
In Her, a 2013 film directed by Spike Jonze, a lonely writer develops a love affair with the virtual assistant of an operating system. Brave New World, a book written in 1932 by the English author Aldous Huxley, fabricates a dystopian society whose cult of efficiency and rationality creates a humanity that ignores hardship and pain but also represses love and freedom. In Mary Shelley's 1818 book Frankenstein, considered the first science fiction novel, a life is artificially created, producing a monster with human characteristics: wills, wishes, and fears. Whether describing the fear of artificial intelligence, the uncertainty produced by industrialization, or the limits of science, science fiction works reveal less about the future and much more about the moment in which they were created; they speak of the fears and hopes of their own time.
When we explore urban visions of the past anticipating the future, it is common to find exaggerated and even funny predictions. As for the promises of architecture and, consequently, of our cities, it is not an easy task to predict future developments clearly either. By looking at industry trends and using all of our imaginations, could we tell what cities will be like in tens or hundreds of years? Their materials, their appearance, their way of building and thinking? Will it be a more pristine and minimalist future or a more organic and complex future? How will new technologies and building materials affect the shape, aesthetics, and prosperity of the cities of tomorrow?
The construction industry moves a huge amount of resources, employs millions of people, and is a fairly accurate gauge for the economic situation of different countries. If the economy goes down, construction shrinks, and vice versa. Members of the construction industry include mining companies, contractors, material manufacturers, architects, engineers, governments, real estate, and more. In other words, many agents participate either directly and indirectly in the industry. But construction is also considered to be one of the most backward and resistant industries to embrace new technologies, instead opting to replicate traditional ways of doing less efficient work with high rates of waste. A study by McKinsey & Company showed that, unlike other industries, industry productivity has remained stable in construction in recent years, despite all the technological progress that has occurred.
The technology used in smartphone facial recognition or digital car keys has the potential to revolutionize the way people access and move through buildings. Many common aspects of building access systems today seem outdated in comparison to technological advances in other parts of our lives: PIN pads, security badges, key cards, even physical locks and keys. However, the technology already exists with the potential to make building access simultaneously more seamless and more secure.
The author gained a grasp for innovative architectural materials and their application while working for architects such as Rick Joy, whose Mountain House in Tucson, Arizona, employed rammed-earth walls. (Creative commons/Flickr user designmilk)
There is a slide I like to show at the beginning of the architecture courses I teach that provides an overview of the last hundred years or so in design and technology. In the left column, a car from the beginning of the 20th Century (a Ford Model T) is poised over a contemporary car (a Tesla). The middle column contains a similar juxtaposition, showing a WWI-era biplane and a modern-day stealth fighter (an F-117A). In the right column, Walter Gropius’s 1926 Bauhaus Dessau building is seen next to an up-to-date urban mixed-use building. The punch line, of course, is that the two buildings—separated by roughly 100 years—look basically the same, whereas the cars and planes separated by the same timespan seem worlds apart. What is the reason for this?
The world’s longest 3D-printed concrete pedestrian bridge has been completed in Shanghai. Designed by Professor Xu Weiguo from the Tsinghua University (School of Architecture) - Zoina Land Joint Research Center for Digital Architecture, the 26.3-meter-long bridge was inspired by the ancient Anji Bridge in Zhaoxian, China.
The single-arch structure was created using a 3D printing concrete system developed by Professor Xu Weiguo’s team, integrating digital design, cost efficiency, smart technology, and architectural dynamism. Enclosing the 3.6-meter width, the bridge’s handrails are shaped like flowing ribbons on the arch, creating a light, elegant movement across the Shanghai Wisdom Bay pond.
UBC researchers have found a cheap, sustainable way to build a solar cell using bacteria that convert light to energy. Image Courtesy of Flickr/LillyAndersen via University of British Columbia
Hailed as a “cheap, sustainable” method of renewable energy extraction, the cell can generate a current stronger than any previously recorded from similar devices. Development of the cell opens new possibilities for typically-overcast regions such as British Columbia and Northern Europe, where the world's first solar panel road debuted in France.
https://www.archdaily.com/898379/the-university-of-british-columbias-bacteria-driven-solar-cell-can-produce-energy-under-cloudy-skiesNiall Patrick Walsh
The Madison Square Garden Company has unveiled images of its proposed MSG Sphere in London, a next-generation venue seeking to “redefine live entertainment” through an array of technology geared towards transformative, immersive connections between artists and audiences.
A bounty of technological innovations in the 21st century have led to the theorization and implementation of so-called "Smart Cities," urban environments driven by data, and designed for efficiency. Although most smart technology focuses on infrastructure, a new tech startup named UNSense has been launched with adopts a human-centric approach, focusing on health and wellbeing.
Founded by Ben van Berkel, Principal Architect of Dutch firm UNStudio, and based in an Amsterdam innovation hub, UNSense aims to use technical interventions in the urban realm to improve people’s physical, mental and social health. As an independent, sister company of UNStudio, UNSense will specialize in sensor-driven technology for user-focused architecture – a "software" approach offering a counterpoint to the "hardware" of UNStudio.
https://www.archdaily.com/890744/unstudio-founder-launches-startup-for-shaping-human-focused-smart-citiesNiall Patrick Walsh
The urban heat island effect - the hot, overwhelming temperatures that a city's concrete produces - has a huge impact on livability and comfort within the city. Now, an elegant cooling system has been designed that not only reduces energy usage, but - should it be installed on multiple buildings - could even lower the overall temperature of a city itself. Learn more, after the break.
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.jpg?1643425181 "Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier, 1929. Image © Flickr User: End User")
_V%C3%ADctor_Pati%C3%B1o_George.jpg?1643424298 "Villa Stein, Le Corbusier, 1927. Image © Víctor Patiño George")
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