The Additive Manufacturing and/or 3D Printing process is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry by allowing any size company, or individual in many cases, to manufacture quickly, locally and with far fewer costs. This simple process that builds things by depositing material, typically plastic or metal, layer by layer until the final product is finished, is used to make a number of products today including: jewelry, iPhone cases, shoes, automobile parts, jet engine components, prosthetic limbs and so much more. During the next decade this technology could transform the way we build buildings.

Using additive manufacturing in building construction has already begun. Janjaap Ruijssenaars, an architect in Holland has revealed plans for a 3D print building which is scheduled to be completed in 2014. The building, which he estimates will cost 4-5 million euros. Mr Ruijssenaars is working with large-scale 3D printing expert, Enrico Dini on the project. Mr. Dini is an engineer and an educator from Italy who runs a largescale 3d print laboratory in the UK called D form. 

Mr Dini’s industrial sized 3D printer uses sand and a special binding agent to create a “marble like material” stronger than cement. But the 1,000-sq-m buildings would still require concrete reinforcements.

There are a number of benefits 3d print offers to building construction, the first is that it can produce complex forms that would be difficult, time consuming, wasteful — and in some cases impossible — to make with current technology. Janjaap’s building is a large, twisting organic form that makes a continuous loop. Constructing such a form using traditional construction methods would require routing styrofoam form work — a time and energy consuming process that results in a large amount of waste.

I spoke with Mr. Dini to find out more about the use of large-scale 3d print technology in building construction.

Kim Poliquin: Is the construction industry embracing this new technology?

Enrico Dini: There is a large amount of interest in large-scale 3d print. I receive hundreds of inquiries per day from machine manufacturers, binder manufacturers, building construction companies, engineers, architects and others. The technology is in investors hands, I am aware of 7 investors that are currently working on business plans. It will however, take major transformations in the construction industry before printing buildings becomes a standard practice.

Kim Poliquin: Will 3d printing become a standard construction method and what steps must the industry take in order for this to happen?

Enrico Dini: I predict in 2020 we will be printing buildings. But, in order to fully integrate this technology, we need to start from scratch and rethink our current construction methods. It will involve a quantic jump because it does not exist so far. We must begin by demonstrating the viability of 3d print in construction by trying it out and evaluating the final product — this is what we are doing now.

But Then we must devise a plan to make on-site 3d print more cost-efficient, this will involve coming up with a set of guides that optimize: transportation, labor and site logistics. For example how will the printer be transported and secured on site? And how must the site be prepared to accommodate this new mechanism? Also, all of the people working on buildings such as construction teams and laborers, must learn new skills in order to accommodate an entirely new way of building. New manufacturers, products and supplies will have to be developed and this will take many years.

Kim Poliquin: How are you demonstrating its viability?

Enrico Dini: Right now we are working on a few very small projects in South Africa where costs are low and experimentation is not limited by regulations. We are learning from the process, testing the technology and will be evaluating the buildings when they are complete. We are also producing a 3 meter stone form pavilion in the Italian Expo 2015, which will provide even more data.

Kim Poliquin: How does the cost of 3d print technology compare to the cost of typical construction methods?

Enrico Dini: Right now 3d print is much more expensive than traditional construction. The cost will come down considerably once the right business model has been developed and the industry is prepared for the new technology. Due to advancements made in 3d print technology, costs have already come down considerably since the idea was first developed 5 years ago.

Kim Poliquin: What are the environmental benefits of 3d print construction?

Enrico Dini:The most cost-efficient business model will be one that tailors the technology to regions. Regional specialization can optimize the use of materials and production in situ, reducing transportation and offering a number of environmentally sustainable benefits. For example, local rock and soil can be shaped into a building tapping into “traditional materials and methods”. This process, based upon the vernacular architecture tradition, can establish greater value in the buildings. 

Kim Poliquin: What materials can be printed?

Enrico Dini: Almost any material can be printed: plastic, sawdust, tires, glass or metal, and post-processed materials. All print materials are made of 2 parts: aggregates which are the fill and binders which are essentially the glue that holds the fill together. Finding the right binder for the aggregate is the most important part of the process and it must be tested to ensure optimum performance. We are currently working with dolomitic stone and a magnesium binder, the result is basically sandstone.

Regional specialization will simplify the material selection process as a set of aggregates and binders will be defined per region. In fact, we could begin testing regional aggregates and binders now by applying this process to small landscape applications. We could then evaluate these materials and identify the most promising combinations and have them ready to use in our buildings.

Kim Poliquin: It sounds like a chemist or scientist must be involved in the binder selection process, is this true?

Enrico Dini: Binders for readily used materials will have already been determined and tested. You will need to consult with a chemist or engineer to find the correct binder for a material that has not been printed. A consultant should be part of the material testing phase to help determine best local aggregate and binder per region.

Kim Poliquin: What is the maximum area a 3d print can cover?

Enrico Dini: Scale of the print depends on the embodiment of the printer. Our machine can cover a 16’ x 16’ x 6’ area, that is roughly 10-15 tons of material. However, printers can be sized to cover much larger areas than that, A printer could be sized to print an entire building in one shot, with no modulation.

* Enrico Dini and his work will be featured in the upcoming film documentary ‘The Man Who Prints Buildings’ by Jack Wake-Walker and Marc Webb.

Photo credits:  1-2 proposed 3d print building by Janjaap Ruijssenaars

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During a visit to the BAC’s annual AD 20/21 at the Boston Cyclorama, Kim Poliquin, Director of SHIFTboston, discovered the organic, nature inspired work of Wendy Wolf.  Wendy, an artist who has completed residencies at both Taliesin West and the Contemporary Artist Center at Woodside “establishes a tenuous connection with the natural world..”.  Her print making and installation art, embodies gentle plant-like textures, capable of softening the hard lines of the urban environment.

Meghan Maupin, a writer for SHIFTboston spoke with Wendy to learn more about her work:

Wendy creates obsessive repetitive artwork that draws inspiration from language and leaves. Her paper installations create records of fleeting moments. She uses leaves altered by natural processes and preserves them by reproducing their forms with translucent yupo paper. By making these paper leaves, Wendy “neutralizes nature” and recalls both the life of the plant and her own interactions with nature. In a phone interview, Wendy explained that she is allergic to most leaves, which makes her personal relationship with nature distant, while her work brings her back to it.  It becomes safe for her to experience nature through the repetitive fabrication of the leaves because it takes the danger out. Wendy reiterates this thought in her artist’s statement, saying she intends to “establish a tenuous connection with the natural world by bringing my manufactured leaves as a mimisis of nature in dialogue with the landscapes of human construct.”

All of Wendy’s work is as much about process as it is product; the acts of mark making, cutting, assembling, and movement are obsessively repeated in her painting and sculpture. Her constructed landscapes are usually temporary, but with some aspect of permanence. Structural lines made out of cotton thread that will disintegrate over time are used to “create tenuous and visual connections” in the installation pieces.

In some situations, like the recent “Flora and Fauna” exhibit, Wendy is given a few parameters and has to work creatively within them to create her installation. In this instance, she was asked to work within 2000 sq ft and could not adhere to the ground. She re-used support systems and hardware from old shows in order to make a moveable, temporary installation that was off the ground.  For all of her paper pieces, she pulls from an extraordinary collection of cut leaves and scrap paper from other shows- to include even the cutouts from what bugs ate out of the leaves- and re-assembles them in various ways.

Keeping a studio in Philadelphia, Wendy now lives in Newton, MA and will part of a much-hyped exhibition happening in Boston at the end of June*.  In addition to about 20 other artists, she will be participating in “OccupyING the Present” at HarborArts, a waterfront sculpture park on a working industrial sea-going harbor. The show features temporary, site-responsive art and focuses on ephemerality and change. Wendy has proposed working with the seaweed growing in the docks, which the show’s curator, sculpter Elizabeth Michelman, says will be “visibly vulnerable to the elements and as a food source for insects will break down during the course of the exhibition. ” She adds Wendy has ” an elegant sense of composition and space, which will highlight the scale, color, patterns and other aesthetics features of the buildings on which her art is sited.”  Wendy is extremely interested in how her pieces interact with the built environment and create informal space; she hopes in the future to scale up and collaborate with architects to create huge, permanent installations and replace disintegrating thread with cables and wires.

*”OccupyING the Present” is expected to run June 29-September 21. There will be an opening celebration to meet Wendy and other artists of “OccupyING the Present on the afternoon of June 29.  Time of events and tours will be on the HarborArts website http://www.harborarts.org/

Please visit Wendy Wolf’s website: http://thewendywolf.com/www.thewendywolf.com/Wendy_Wolf.html

Written By: Meghan Maupin                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Edited By: Kim Poliquin

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How about a business hub in Boston so adequately efficient in layout, internal infrastructure and proximity to transportation, that one could conceivably arrive, attend a meeting, and be off to Beijing in just ONE day? 

The studio:

Two weeks ago we presented Tsai and Nawratil’s radical concept for the expansion of South Station from the 2012 post-professional studio at the Yale School of Architecture, co-taught by Ed Mitchell, Fred Koetter and Aniket Shahane. The 2012 post professional studio examines a series of contiguous developer parcels in Boston and students have designed concepts to identify new roles for the future of these sites. We will be presenting the second of the two most radical student proposals along with a critique from David Gamble, a standing official on the Innovation District task force and co-writer of the new district program.

The concept:

HYBRID by Mengyao Yu and Jie Tian creates an urban enclave for the emerging ‘jet set’ of downtown Boston, challenging the city’s historic fabric of neighborhood districts and embracing the large scale of the South Boston waterfront. The site’s proximity to the highway, ferry and airport triggers this response, capitalizing on the tangled landscape of infrastructure which is most advantageous to an emerging population of business executives and part time global citizens of Boston. In the scheme, two major locations, one an urban island in the center of the freeway off ramps between the Leather District and Fort Point Chanel and a second to the west of the Convention Center are the locus of two large hotel and apartment complexes. These enclaves are linked to the Ted Williams Tunnel, the waterway taxis and ferries by way of the Chanel and South Station terminal for easy access to points throughout the globe. Locally a bridge linking the two hotels makes a park-like connection from the Rose Kennedy Greenway into South Boston. The buildings are designed so that there is easy car and taxi access, and their evocative forms emphasize both their role as urban landmarks and the experience and views of the complexes from the air and from the car.

What the Innovation District task force says:

SHIFTboston spoke with David Gamble AIA, of the Innovation District Task Force,  co-chair of the BSA Urban Design Committee to hear what the task force has to say about such a development. 

SHIFTboston:  Would the city of Boston ever approve such a large-scale transformation like this? What might be approved? Is there anything that would not?

David Gamble:  “Hybrid” wisely capitalizes on the transit-rich – and often overlooked – infrastructure of the site.  While South Station, the Bus Terminal and Logan Airport are all known transportation hubs, the scheme amplifies their proximity to one another by revealing paths between them and adding new ones to augment the network.  Interstate 90, the great east west car corridor, acts as a direct conduit for new development and commerce, and water transport is brought into the channel in a way that elegantly activates the solemn channel.  Moreover, pedestrian movement is facilitated by the construction of two elevated platforms over the water, helping to diminish the perception of distance between the two sides, which are really quite close.  The problem is just that one can’t easily traverse the channel now without going all the way around it. 

The great promise of this proposal lies with the notion that infrastructure has the potential to do more than just connect people with places.  If designed well, and with thoughtful engineering, the transportation endeavor can be an armature for new construction that literally wraps the investment. In a city that benefitted from billions and billions of dollars depressing a short elevated freeway and building a harbor tunnel, such an ambitious vision ought not to me dismissed too easily. 

SHIFTboston:  The structure provides an improved link between the leather district, south station and the fort point channel districts. Have you seen other design proposals or plans that aim to increase circulation between these districts? Would you describe.

David Gamble:  Proximity is important, but the linkages between the two sides are perhaps less important than the effect that they have on their specific sites.  To the east, Site 2 embraces the grade change of Summer Street and creates an active promenade between the Convention Center and the hotel.  A new datum is embraced and extended.  To the west, the tangled-web of I-93 off ramps, and the residual space they define, become activated by the new program, effectively spanning a space entirely devoid of habitation.  More than just a bridge, the hybrid project establishes a network of connections which seek to diminish existing barriers and create new alignments unforeseen.  The scheme embraces the tangled web of existing circulation and rationalizes it, creating a compelling magnetism between east and west. 

SHIFTboston:  Given your familiarity with the urban context surrounding this site, what are your thoughts about the form, texture, scale and layout of the new buildings? Do they add a new and exciting moment to the existing fabric? Are the complimentary to it? Or are they in conflict with it?

David Gamble:  The scale of the architectural proposition, while dwarfing the context of the late nineteenth century Fort Point neighborhood, does not overwhelm the new context which has already begun to emerge under the auspices of the “Innovation District” brand.  Buildings recently completed or permitted in the district have more in common from a typology perspective with the nearby Financial District or Kendall Square in Cambridge than anything that resembles what was there in the past. In fact, compared to the footprint of the Convention Center (which itself is going under a major expansion!), one can say that the sister-structures are even too small given the transit investment required to access them.  The project could warrant even greater height, especially on Site 1. 

SHIFTboston:  What are some of your overall thoughts about the specific programming?

David Gamble:  Boston is notoriously short on hotel space.  There are hundreds of rooms planned, permitted or under construction already in the area, and collectively they are unlikely to meet the full demand.  In a city whose occupancy rates consistently rank near the top in the country, it’s hard to imagine we will ever have enough accommodation in downtown Boston for the millions of tourists and visitors who chose to experience the city. 

But one wonders if the project relies on the hotel program situated above the retail base.  Housing is in demand, and in particular the smaller-scaled, micro units which are being sought by people on both ends of the age demographic and are more affordable.  While the is an elegant parallax created between the sinuous hotel forms, additional housing might have helped to better integrate the objects into their surroundings, and offered places for residents in a district which is likely to see more than 20 million square feet of new construction take hold in the next generation.

Written by: Meghan Maupin

Edited by: Kim Poliquin

Content provided by: Edward Mitchell, post-professional studio at the Yale School of Architecture

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How would you solve the problem of creating housing in areas that are susceptible to hurricanes? Design firm Perkins+Will recently submitted a design that won a 2013 P/A Award. Their design proposes a floating multifamily housing on a 72,000- square-foot pier in Charlestown, Mass., at the edge of Boston Harbor called, Floatyard.

Ed Nardi, President of Cresset Development also worked with Perkins+Will on the Floatyard design recently spoke with SHIFTboston and told us more about the project.

SB: What was your process and inspiration for designing the Floatyard?

Ed Nardi: As a developer always thinking of creative housing typology in order to create buzz and interest from perspective renter/buyer; specifically the idea of floating housing was borne out of a visit to Amsterdam and seeing some of their floating townhouses along the inner harbor that were new to the area and of course their barge housing which is scattered throughout the canals in the city. Unique housing like this would be very popular – and given its inner city location cars are not a primary concern but imagine pulling your boat up to the side of your residence!

SB: If built, where are other areas in Boston or on the coast that could benefit from this type of housing?

Ed Nardi: Harbors are the best bet for obvious reasons of building on waters that are relatively protected but also have the utility infrastructure to tie into. Fortunately the pricing is really unit driven by count so the concept could be easily sized up or down given the size of the watersheet area. The units can easily be built offsite – which could promote significant savings when one considers the significant premium for union labor in certain core markets and would ultimately have to be reasonably negotiated. The finished units on barges that would then be floated into place and anchored by a series of pilings that allow the housing to float with the tide. We would envision from 6 -12 units of housing per barge.

SB: What are the qualities of Floatyard that make it able to withstand hurricanes and major storms more so than traditional building structures?

Ed Nardi: I am not sure that the physical structures would be any better than conventional land based housing as to withstanding significant wind loads given the structures would be identical as to following standard building code requirements and presumably best engineering practices. However, I believe they certainly could weather any storm surge better than adjacent structures since the concept is barge based and the housing on the barges would simply rise with the tide and not be prone to flooding – certainly water rise and flooding create far more damage than wind in recent hurricanes. There is no basement structure to worry about and all utilities would be above the ground floor line in the units.

SB: How receptive is the city of Boston to building housing like Floatyard and is it a possibility for it to be build soon?

Ed Nardi: Hand in hand with this is figuring out how to permit a project like this in a restrictive permitting environment that is controlled by Chapter 91 statutes in Massachusetts – there is a path to do so with this type of housing under Chapter 91 but it will come down to some fairly finer technical arguments. And like any new idea, one would have to build advocacy from people that have a stake in the harbor so that the permitting process doesn’t get mired down in the permitting process. I believe that this could be built soon

SB: Where (if any) are there other locations that currently use structures that may be similar to Floatyard?

Ed Nardi: I do not know of similar applications to Floatyard but certainly Seattle and California have floating housing stock but limited to two stories I believe, Amsterdam is the largest application of larger scale housing that I have seen to date.

SB: In your opinion, are other parts of the country or world more open to designs like Floatyard being build – please explain your answer.

Ed Nardi: Apparently yes as noted above, change doesn’t come easily in Boston which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. An exacting permitting process coupled with tough local politics and abutter concerns tend to make Boston a “high barrier” city but respectfully it tends to limit overbuilding, promote better planning and architecture and hold higher value but, it does come at a cost of limiting new and innovative ideas in the built environment. When one overlays these typical permitting hurdles with Chapter 91 restrictions as to building adjacent or over the water it can appear very daunting but there is a path to “getting there” – it just requires a fair bit of diligence and a lot of patience!

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