'Print Your House' Coming Soon? Architecture and Fabrication

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Architizer is hosting the world’s definitive architectural awards program, with 50+ categories and 200+ jurors. As part of an ongoing series, we’re spotlighting projects that fit into “Plus” categories, including “Fabrication,” that tap into topical and culturally relevant themes. To see a full list of categories and learn more about the awards, visit architizerawards.com.

Don’t let the flashy renderings fool you. The future of architecture lay not so much in novel forms as in new methods of digital fabrication. In an age of rapidly diminishing resources, architects must develop, together with research laboratories, tech leaders, and software designers, efficient construction models that make more with less. This will require new types of mechanical and robotic armatures, which prove more nimble, accurate, and thus, efficient at building both complex and simple structures, to put those new models into practice. The goal is to put all of these ingenious ideas to the test, and develop the best for widespread application at every scale.

Fabrication innovations have thoroughly and irrevocable changed the making of architecture, and architects should welcome that change. That just doesn’t mean corporate designers like Foster + Associates that now have robotic and digital fabrication wings, but also smaller firms that are responsible for the majority of building. These techniques and machines should be made available and affordable to every kind of architect, and not exclusively licensed to the larger firms. Here’s to hoping for an office robot arm!

Below is our roundup of self-building architecture, giant 3D printers, blood bricks, and of course, robots, robots, robots.

ETH Zurich & ROB Technologies @ Rob|Arch 2012 from robotsinarchitecture on Vimeo.

ROB Technologies
Brick workshop at ETH Zürich
Designed by ROB Technologies
Innovation:
Learn more about this project and about robotic architecture (Rob|Arch) here.

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D-Shape
Universal application (unit still being developed)
Designed by Enrico Dini, founder of Monolite U.K.
Innovation: largest 3D printer in the world that uses composite materials to print “instant stone” to build entire full-scale structures
Learn more about this project here.

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Sky City
Changsha/China
Designed by Broad Sustainable Building
Innovation: using pre-fabrication technology to build the 220-story building—what will be the world’s tallest—in just 90 days
Learn more about this project here.

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Flight Assembled Architecture
FRAC Centre in Orléans/France (December 2011)
Designed by Gramazio & Kohler
Innovation: uses a fleet of programmed flying robots equipped with motion sensors to lay down masonry with incredible precision and minimal labor
Learn more about this project here.

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Blood bricks
Universal application
Designed by grad Jack Munro
Innovation: recycling blood waste to use as a building material for arid climates
Learn more about this project here.

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Louis Vuitton pop-up store
Selfridges in London/U.K.
Designed by THEVERYMANY in collaboration with Yayoi Kusama
Innovation: first carbon fiber self supported shell applied to architecture
Learn more about this project here.

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Self-Assembly Line
Universal application
Designed by SJET (Skylar Tibbits)
Innovation: geometric units (or solids) here become magnetically attracted to each other once they are externally agitated, auto-aligning into “locally-correct configurations”; the goal is that by “changing the external conditions, the geometry of the unit, the attraction of the units and the number of units supplied, the desired global configuration can be programmed.”
Learn more about this project here.

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Building Bytes
Universal application
Designed by Design Lab Workshop
Innovation: first 3D-printed ceramic bricks for building purposes
Learn more about this project here.

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Villa Asserbo
Copenhagen/Denmark
Designed by Eentileen and Facit homes
Innovation: uses sustainably-sourced wood cut using rapid prototyping machines (CNC router) into panels designed for “snap” assemblage
Learn more about this project here.

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In Vitro Meat Habitat (“Meat House”)
Grown in Terreform ONE lab/universal application
Designed by Terreform ONE
Innovation: uses modified ink jet printer to 3D-print extruded pig cells to build walls of meat
Learn more about this project here.