Printing Architecture

Innovative Recipes for 3D Printing

Ronald Rael | 4.28 | 9 ratings and reviews

Although 3D printing promises a revolution in many industries, primarily industrial manufacturing, nowhere are the possibilities greater than in the field of product design and modular architecture. Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, of the cutting-edge San Francisco Bay Area-based design firm Emerging Objects, have developed remarkable techniques for "printing" from a wide variety of powders, including sawdust, clay, cement, rubber, concrete, salt, and even coffee grounds, opening an entire realm of material, phenomenological, and ecological possibilities to designers. In addition to case studies and illustrations of their own work, Rael and San Fratello offer guidance for sourcing alternative materials, specific recipes for mixing compounds, and step-by-step instructions for conducting bench tests and setting parameters for material testing, to help readers understand the process of developing powder-based materials and their unique qualities.

"Thought-provoking research that makes you question your assumptions about 3D printing and architecture"---Jessica Rosenkrantz, Cofounder and Creative Director, Nervous System

"Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello are brilliant alchemists and architects, who are rethinking the building process from the bottom up. The results are sensuous, inventive, and sustainable. This book takes you inside their extraordinary process."---Ellen Lupton, Senior Curator of Contemporary Design, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

"Printing Architecture impressively demonstrates how 3D printing has fast become an essential ingredient in contemporary design and building culture. Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael uncover the sublime beauty of the abundant materials our world is made out of and will be printed from in the future---grain by grain"---Matthias Kohler, Architect, Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello are professors at University of California, Berkeley, and San Jose State University, respectively. Their firm, Emerging Objects, has been instrumental in developing new materials for powder-based 3D printing. Rael is the author of Earth Architecture and Borderwall as Architecture. less

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