Moving along a 33-foot-long rail, a large, industrial-scale robot works with a 3D printer to extrude plastic and carbon-fiber that forms an intricate lattice that will become the core of a wall, a task that may open home building and other structures to new and cheaper construction methods. The rapid development of 3D printing, digital,…
Read more
Intrado concept car based on carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) tubes. “Floating” centre console beam connects passenger compartment and powertrain with carbon frame. Hyundai Motor Company, in cooperation with Lotte Chemical, Hyosung Corporation and Axon Automotive, has developed an innovative carbon frame for the automotive body of the Intrado concept car. This innovation is also the…
Read more
Architecture is tapping into 3D printing technology in a major way through the production of building elements and structural components. Recent developments have also begun to work on creating seismically resistant structures. California-based architecture firm Emerging Objects has developed a design called the Quake Column, which draws on the ancient Incan building technique known as…
Read more
The looping path returns again and again, tracing precise geometric patterns. Some fall back on the shapes that preceded them, as if being woven together; others accrete to form new layers. Eventually, an object emerges – a tabletop vase, a piece of avant-garde furniture, sometimes an entire building. Designers Ronald Rael at the University of…
Read more
Driving through a suburb of Boston, listening to Studio 360 on NPR discuss the environmental, safety and economic advantages of these eco-dome houses, I thought: “Sure, those are great in the California desert which already resembles a planet from Star Wars, but could homes like this (which I must say, appear really quite livable) ever…
Read more
History of round in shape homes The oldest forms of indigenous shelter were often round in shape. Think the Southwest USA Hogan, Mongolian Yurt, North American Teepee and the Greek Tenemos, among others. Why did our ancestors choose to build round? Because the ovid shape — eggs, earth, tree trunks, and stones — is what…
Read more
